Susan's War
by friendlyquark
Summary: A prequel to "Once More, Into the Breach" with the Doctor and the Master being forced to fight in the Time War, Susan is left to fight a lonely, terrible battle alone. The Doctor can't save her from everything after all and the Master doesn't want to. The whole story has been expanded and updated. Ver.2 :)
1. Chapter 1

A/N - I have substantially re-written this to fix continuity and expand the story. Hope you all enjoy it. :)

Chapter 1 – Bad Beginning

It was always the same, each week. Susan would get up, get dressed, kiss one of the grandkids softly as they slept, and then she'd slip out the door of the little blue row house. Every Sunday, at the same time, she would climb the gravel path up the hill to where the cemetery was and visit his grave. Fifteen years of solitary grief.

"David Campbell, Beloved Husband, Father, and Grandfather." A few lines carved on cold stone. Too little to encompass all that he had been to her. She would stand there, with the sky above and the cold earth below, and remember. She would remember that first kiss, stolen in the midst of danger, she'd see again the marriage ceremony, put together from what little anyone had back then. She would smile as she thought of birthdays, anniversaries, and all the moments of joy they'd shared during thirty years of marriage. Then, she would weep, missing him so much, and feeling so very much alone.

The battered city of London stretched away at the base of the hill, half-rebuilt, already a bustling metropolis, a port of refuge for millions across the world. Big Ben chimed in the distance, repaired, but still always a bit off on the time. This world was coming back to life, this world filled with all these wonderful, vibrant, all too brief human lives.

She was enmeshed in their reality. She ran the hospital and acted as doctor to half of London. Even though she'd trained half a dozen more doctors and nurses, still everyone came to Dr. Campbell first. She'd birthed hundreds of babies, eased the deaths of dozens of people grown too old or too sick to continue on. She was constantly studying, constantly researching, trying to find ways to save as many as she could.

But she did it all alone now, always alone, even when surrounded by family and friends. Only one man had known her for what she was and loved her completely. Only David had known the full truth of her, had whispered her real name in the darkness, and had fallen asleep to the double beat of her hearts. He was gone now and there was no one here to talk to about a world with a burnt orange sky and trees with silver leaves upon them, a world that was so very far away.

They all thought that she was human and she kept it that way. To the people of London, all aliens were Daleks, terrifying creatures that slew and tormented. She couldn't reveal herself to them, they wouldn't understand.

Her grandfather came up the hill behind her. She could feel his mind approaching and she knew, without having to speak, what he had come to say to her. She turned and studied him, memorizing the new face and body he'd taken recently.

He'd become dark of hair and with hazel eyes in a face that seemed sad even when he was smiling. His new body was strong and vigorous, but had a languid grace that she admired. She wondered what had caused this regeneration, but set that aside for another conversation.

"Susan," he began and she nodded.

"I know," she answered. "It's time to move on."

"I loved him too, you know, he was a truly wonderful young man," he sighed out and looked down at the headstone with regret, the hazel of his eyes seeming dimmed and without their usual sparkle.

"We need to go, of course we do," she murmured. "Forty-five years, I've tarried here, if I stay much longer, it will be dangerous for us."

She had traveled the universe with her grandfather for two hundred years, moving through various worlds and societies, but staying nowhere for very long. Until she'd met David and fallen in love with him, and she'd been content with the life they'd had together, as deeply in love at the end as they had been at the beginning.

Too short, she sighed to herself, his human life had been far too short and she was left alone to grieve.

"I know that you've been happy here, but he's been dead fifteen years now, Susan, the children are grown, it's time to go," he added and she looked back at the home she'd made with her husband. They couldn't have children of their own, her genetics and his weren't compatible, but there had been so many orphans who needed love.

She twirled the ring on her finger; the one Grandfather had given her so long ago. It had technology in it that made her look to others as though she were growing old. She wasn't though. Not the way they were, or at least not as fast as they were. Her children were grown now and had become parents themselves, but without the ring she wore, she would look younger even than they did.

Grandfather would come and visit, usually with some friend he'd made and traveled with for a while, but then he'd go again, as he always did. For years she hadn't understood why, but as the decades passed, she came to see it. They all grew old so quickly, died so soon. He wisely did not stay to watch them age and fade, leaving them behind to protect his own heart, as she now had to.

"Then let us go," she agreed and turned back to look up at the sky lightening with the dawn. The stars were fading, like a dream she could no longer recall, and it made her sad.

She was so very lonely.

* * *

They marched the Master into the High Council's chambers, guards surrounding him on all sides. He allowed himself a smile at their paranoid precautions. At least they appreciated that he was not someone to take lightly.

He'd died in the Eye of Harmony link on the Doctor's TARDIS and they had brought him back to life. It always seemed that as much as they despised him, they couldn't bear to let him die either. He was always being offered more regenerations, more life, by the very people who claimed to hate him. It was really quite amusing.

The room was large, but filled with shadows at the edges. A long table surrounded by high backed chairs dominated the room. The lighting had been designed to dramatically highlight the assembly, leaving petitioners to stand in the dark. It was a childish trick, he felt, and one not worthy of Time Lords.

Rassilon, dark haired and blue-eyed this regeneration, wearing flowing elegant red robes, sat in his chair like a king, rather than a president, smug, confident, his handsome face and genial exterior, inadequate to hide the power-hungry, grasping egotism of him, at least from the Master's eye, even if no one else present seemed to see it.

The Master glared at Rassilon and the High Council, his mouth twisted into a sneer. How he despised these pompous, useless politicians, with their petty plots and deceits. He could read their minds with ease. He could see that they believed they were actually smarter than him. Mad, sick, that's what they thought of him, and maybe he was, but he wasn't stupid. Chancellor Flavia and the Lady Professor were both watching him with greater wariness and care than the others were, but Flavia and the Doctor's mother were also far smarter than the rest of them.

The pounding in his head, the never ending drumbeat of his destiny rolled on and he bared his teeth at them with the smile of a wolf amongst sheep. That drumbeat told him of his greatness, of his importance, it drove him on to fight and survive. They couldn't hear that rolling cadence, and so they were lesser creatures, unworthy of his regard. It could be a harsh destiny, even painful at times, but nothing glorious was ever achieved without pain. That they cringed from greatness and effort, made them all quite contemptible in his eyes.

"We brought you back to life, with a full set of regenerations, so that you could serve us in the War. You will be the perfect soldier for us, ruthless, cunning, merciless, and utterly without compunction," Rassilon was explaining. The Master wasn't sure whether to feel insulted or complimented by the list of attributes. The hypocrisy of it all was so damned amusing. These pacifists, these weaklings, they hated him and everything he stood for, but the minute they needed his power, oh suddenly he was "perfect" for them.

"What war were you planning to join, my Lord President?" he asked idly. He really couldn't care less about their stupid conflicts, but if he was to be drafted, knowing thy enemy was always wise. He studied his new hands admiring the long slender fingers. His hands were strong and dexterous, he was pleased by that.

"The time has come to deal with the Daleks, once and for all," was the smug reply and the Master nearly laughed aloud at the presumption and arrogance of that statement.

"If you can," he mocked. Rassilon's overweening pride was rather comical.

"We'll rout them in the first battle, they are a lesser species, far beneath us," Rassilon assured him, but the Master could tell that not all of the Council agreed with the Lord President. He smiled at the Lady Professor, whose discomfort with this coming war was nearly palpable.

"Funny, my Lord President, I hear they think the same of us," he retorted, disdainful of these cowardly bookkeepers that sat safe on their little world, refusing to stretch out a hand to any greater destiny.

"You will be sent to Arcadia first to see to our defenses there," Rassilon ordered him.

"Why exactly should I help you?" he asked lazily, studying his fingernails with a bored expression.

"Because, if you don't, I will press this button," Rassilon informed him. Suiting action to word, he dropped a finger down on the table in front of him and agony lanced through the Master. It was like burning alive, or being electrocuted, and his cries of pain rang out through the room, startling the sheep and making them bleat. He was on his knees, barely able to keep from falling to the floor, rage, pain, and humiliation surging through him in equal measures. "You have been fitted with control mechanisms, boy, and now I am _your_ master."

"Lord President! Is this really necessary?" the Lady Professor bit out, in a voice as cold as ice. "He's giving me the headache." Her hazel eyes were clouded as she watched him. The pain ended abruptly and he caught a brief look of compassion on her face, before she schooled it again to impassivity. There was more gray in her dark hair than the last time he'd seen her and he wondered why he even noticed.

The Doctor's mother had cared for the boy that the Master had been. He found it interesting that she still harbored some soft-hearted fondness for him still. She was simply another fool, of course. Pity was something only weaklings felt, but he was grateful for it just then. He recalled her kindness to him with something akin to anger. Her affection hadn't helped him in the end, nor had it kept the drumbeat at bay. They'd all prated about love and family, but they had all still betrayed him, judged him, and left him alone. He was always alone.

"My apologies, My Lady Professor," Rassilon soothed. "Mad dogs often need very short leashes." The look in his eyes wasn't pleasant and the Master knew he'd have to tread carefully around the ancient Time Lord. He'd find a way to escape, of course, but until then, best to play along.

"This 'dog' is quite clear on the length of the leash, Lord President," the Master murmured, keeping his tone neutral, when all he wanted was to rend Rassilon limb from limb. Someday, he'd have his revenge on that smug bastard. Someday soon, he hoped. He was pleased with his new voice. It had a clipped quality that he felt would be useful to him. He could drawl nicely and he planned to use that in the future.

"Yes, well, be aware that your leash can also be used to cut off your life. Fail us and you will die, do you understand?" Rassilon hissed at him and the light of madness in Rassilon's eyes was very clear to him. The Immortal Lord President was far more insane than anyone here seemed to realize, how amusing.

"Perfectly, my Lord President. Perfectly," the Master answered smoothly. He understood far more than any of the rest of these fools did. Gallifrey had been corrupt before, but now it was getting really interesting.

* * *

The Doctor stood before Rassilon and gaped in disbelief. The High Council of the Time Lords was seated around an oval table, watching him with various expressions. Some of them seemed quite smug with the situation, while others, like Flavia, looked distinctly nervous. His mother sat, unruffled and silent amongst them, watching him with a dispassionate gaze. If he hadn't known the depth of his mother's emotions, he might have believed in her calm. But, knowing her as he did, her very expressionlessness made him very nervous.

"My Lord President, with all due respect, our people haven't fought a war in over a hundred thousand years. We are ludicrously ill-prepared to fight anyone, let alone the full might of the Dalek Empire!" he tried to keep his tone light, but the blank expression on Rassilon's face wasn't encouraging.

"I'm sure that with me to lead them, our people will rise to the challenge," Rassilon replied and the Doctor stared at him for long moments, not quite believing his own ears.

"Have you actually viewed the historical records on the Daleks, Lord President?" he asked next, wondering if perhaps the problem was that the situation hadn't been clearly explained to him.

"Of course, but I have already designed several new weapons and with our mastery of time travel, things should go quickly in our favor," came the assured reply and the Doctor blinked in surprise.

"My Lord President, the Daleks have time travel as well," he pointed out, starting to feel genuinely alarmed. It seemed that the Lord President had absolutely no grasp on reality at all.

"A crude imitation of our own, my Lord Doctor. Your caution is surprising in someone renowned for his reckless and foolhardy behavior," Rassilon commented in a derisive tone.

"I've actually fought them, Lord President, my caution is well founded. The Daleks are the most dangerous foes I have ever faced. I have occasionally won out against them through cleverness, but mostly I've survived through sheer dumb luck," he admitted, running a hand through his curly brown hair.

"We will not need luck; we will have planning and our superior intellects. Very well, your arguments have been heard, my Lord Doctor," Rassilon dismissed him with a wave and fury raced through him. He turned on his heel and left quickly, before he said something he might regret.

That idiot was going to drag them into something truly awful. He needed to get back to Susan and find a place far away in time and space to hide her.

The plaza outside of the Panopticon was bustling. Crowds of robed councilors, of red and white clad guards, and of more casually dressed folk, milled and wandered about the place, laughing, talking, and gesturing, their minds a familiar music in his own. Above him the dome of the Citadel arched, clear and shining and above that the red sky stretched to the horizon, pierced by the twin mountains of Solace and Solitude that cradled the Citadel between them.

All around him the commercial district thrummed, trade goods and gossip from across the universe being exchanged everywhere he went. He jammed his hands in the pockets of his green velvet coat, thinking about all the people of the universe, people he loved and cared for, who were going to be endangered by Rassilon's stupidity.

"Doctor?" a familiar voice called out to him and he spun with a smile on his face.

"Fred!" he cried and she laughed at the old joke between them. Romana, her blond hair bundled on top of her head, her blue eyes merry, ran forward and hugged him hard. She had barely changed since the moment he'd left her behind in E-space. She still had that broad grin, the pointed chin and pixie face. She was still beautiful and still his dear friend.

"Oh Doctor! It's so good to see you!" she chuckled and he buried his face in her shoulder, hugging her tightly to him. She smelled like summertime and lemonade, just as he remembered.

"It's good to see you as well, Romana! What are you doing here?" he asked. "I thought you were busy freeing the Tharils from their slavery?"

"Oh, I did that ages ago, Doctor!" she laughed. "I was in E-space, in the midst of establishing a proper school system for their children, when the Castellan's Guards showed up and insisted that I return to Gallifrey with them," she told him, with her mouth turning down in annoyance. "Every Time Lord and Lady is being ordered back here to take part in the war effort."

"Rassilon wants to fight the Dalek Empire, Romana," he told her with a groan and she nodded. "This is the worst idea in the history of bad ideas." She rolled her eyes in agreement.

"Come on Doctor, let's go get something to eat and you can tell me what you've been up to since I last saw you. You've regenerated again, I see," she commented.

"Several times since I saw you last! You'd have liked the one right after old teeth and curls, I was blond, quite good looking too," he told her with a wink. "After that I was still blond, but a bit of a grump, then I got small, dark, and devious, and here I am looking all Byronic these days," he shrugged.

"How long has it been?" she asked in surprise.

"About two hundred years or so, give or take a collapsed timeline or two," he shrugged. "I'd have to check with the TARDIS, honestly, she keeps much better track than I do."

"She always did," Romana laughed and arm-in-arm they went to get food and catch up with each other.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 – Bleak Homecoming

Susan was walking through the Gardens of Anfellian 6, admiring the medicinal flora that the Anfells used in their concoctions. She'd spent six months here, studying the pharmacology of this world, while Grandfather responded to a summons from Gallifrey.

She was worried about him, if she was being honest with herself. There were rumblings in the various ports of call they'd visited of late, of great armies moving in the vast depths of space, of political unrest, and of sudden moments of temporal instability.

"Dr. Campbell?" one of the antlered Anfells called out to her, his hide mottled with gold and black, his brown eyes, with the minus sign pupil in them, focused on her, waving one dexterous, three fingered hand.

"Scholar Dashes Over Rivers," she responded and walked towards him. "What can I do for you?" the upright, deer-like native, with his curious leg joints that seemed to go in all directions, stepped forwards and bowed.

"The manuscript that you requested has been found in the library, you may view it now," he told her in the whistling melodious tones of his race. She bowed in return and followed after him, out of the garden and into the bustling streets of Haregefete, the capital city.

They chatted amiably as they walked, discussing the latest medical breakthroughs as well as his own specialty, which was Data Conservation.

She heard the sounds of a TARDIS materializing and turned in surprise. Grandfather had only left a few days ago, surely he wouldn't be back so soon?

"Doctor?" the Scholar asked her as she looked around her.

"I thought I heard Grandfather returning," she answered him and he nodded.

There were shouts of dismay and alarm suddenly and Susan's hearts sped up. She spotted the four men in their red and white uniforms and took to her heels. She had barely gotten even five steps though, when she ran straight into a mountain of a man. She looked up startled into narrowed brown eyes in a rugged face, handsome, but coldly impersonal.

"Lady Susanatrevalar, of the Prydonian Chapter, I am Captain Darginian of the Celestial Intervention Agency," he told her, his hands like steel cuffs clamped on her arms.

"What do you want from me?" she asked, trying in vain to pull herself free.

"The Tower has long awaited you, my Lady," he informed her and she froze in terror, looking up into his eyes with a desperate fear.

"Please, no," she begged and his eyes seemed to soften a bit.

"I _am_ sorry my Lady, but my orders are very clear," he told her and she felt the hypo spray being pressed into her neck with a feeling of despair.

"Lots of soldiers have used that excuse through the ages," she told him, her voice scathing. "It never meant anything when they said it either." She saw the look in his eyes, the sudden regret, and it followed her into darkness.

* * *

Darginian looked down at the limp girl in his arms. She was young, less than half his age, little more than a schoolgirl, and the Tower would turn her into a drooling pile of wreckage. She was of the Lady Professor's line, she deserved better than that.

"Captain?" the Castellan's Guards caught up with him and saluted. "You caught her!"

"Of course I did," he replied with disdain. He was the CIA's top Agent, grabbing a little girl off of a street was nothing to him. He'd once broken into a Dalek Command Post and killed their top leadership. The red and white clad guards drew back from him, his cold eyes and sharp tone unnerved them, which was exactly what he'd intended.

"Do you need help with her?" asked another of the guards and he raised a contemptuous eyebrow. He leaned down and hoisted the slender body up in his arms with no effort. She was a tiny little thing, hardly any effort to carry at all.

"No," he replied and they saluted and fled from him, their terror of him disquieting. He used to ignore the dread he inspired. It wasn't that he enjoyed it, he enjoyed nothing. He'd felt nothing for a very long time. It's why he was so good at interrogations. He could go into someone else's mind, rip out what was needed, and feel no unseemly pangs of conscience.

Then he'd gone into the wrong mind and felt the first pity he'd experienced in a very long time. Looking down at Susanatrevalar he felt a moment of compassion. She was a pretty child with a mop of curly black hair. Her eyes had been large, dark, and filled with passionate intelligence. He wondered how much of her fire and spirit would be left when the Tower was done with her.

He ruthlessly suppressed the thought. He was the CIA's top agent. He didn't feel pity for those who defied the government. He retreated into the icy cold of his training and carried the girl to the waiting TARDIS. He'd hand her over just as he was supposed to. He'd do his job and that was it.

"Lots of soldiers have used that excuse through the ages. It never meant anything when they said it either."

Her words followed him though, every step of the way.

* * *

The Doctor strolled back to his quarters, still chuckling from the conversation he'd had with Romana. She was still the chipper, spunky, sarcastic woman he'd known before and he'd enjoyed every minute of their conversation.

He walked into the rooms he'd had since he was a child and looked out the windows at the mountain sloping away from him, silver white snow, dotted with bits of shrub and stunted trees, and down to the red grass plain sweeping away into the distance.

The citadel glinted like a jewel to the far right and he resolutely turned away from the sight of it. The high Tower that rose like an accusing finger from its heart made him uneasy.

"Well Theta," his brother's voice was an unwelcome intrusion. The rooms were supposed to be off limits without invitations, but since when had his obnoxious elder sibling ever respected his privacy? "I see you've dragged yourself home like a whipped dog," he gloated.

"I was summoned, actually. Otherwise I'd be millions of miles away from here right now," he retorted his voice dripping his disdain.

"Oh, of course, you'd be out there shielding your precious little Susan from the big bad Tower." The bitter voice grated on the Doctor's ears and he ground his teeth in an attempt to keep his cool. "Pity that it's far too late." He spun and stared at his brother in shock.

"What are you talking about?"

"They took her on Anfellian 6, little brother. She's gone where she was supposed to be all along. Your efforts were in vain, Theta," he gloated and the Doctor froze inside, horror building inside of him. Without a word he dashed away, pushing past his brother without a word. He ran for the Trans Mat like his life depended on it.

He had to get to Susan.

* * *

Susan woke and found herself lying on a cold hard surface, alone, and with waves of nausea still running through her from the sedative. She felt sick, her body ached, and a cold fear was coiling in her gut.

She raised a hand to her cool scalp and found that her hair, once so curly and thick, like loops of black satin, was shaved close against her head. Looking down she saw the simple white robe of a Visionary Acolyte hanging from her thin shoulders. She was barefoot, naked beneath the thin sleeveless robe, and stripped of everything that had belonged to her. She shivered from both the cold of her prison and from the sense of being exposed and vulnerable.

The room was a plain six-sided cell, no doors or windows that she could see. The walls were a matte gray, the ceiling low, giving a feeling of claustrophobia. She thanked the stars that she'd left her wedding ring in the bedside drawer of her hotel room that morning. It would be there for her grandfather to find; he would keep it safe for her.

She sat up. Five hours had passed, her time sense told her. Her pulse was thudding in her ears and she fought the fear back down. She felt the planet spinning beneath her, calculated the axial tilt with a sick feeling. She was back on Gallifrey, the homeworld that she barely recalled.

She'd never been particularly brave, not like Grandfather, Ian, Barbara, or David had been. She'd been the mouse to their lions, hiding behind them all and relying on their strength. There was no one to hide behind now though.

"Oh Grandfather, where are you?" she whispered. "What will you think when you find me gone? Will you ever even know what happened to me?"

Was she going to die here?

If she was, that would be okay, she decided. It was far better to die than to be turned into a creature like Adyra. Her great uncle had taken her to see his youngest daughter when Susan had been five. She was still frightened by the memory of her cousin, slack-jawed and vacant-eyed, screaming out her visions of the future. She'd shuddered and wept and her great uncle had scolded her for cowardice and lack of emotional control. Grandfather had saved her from that and hidden her for two hundred and forty years.

Now they had her, but she was not going to allow them to turn her into a shattered empty husk like Adyra, she'd rather die first.

The first tendrils of thought brushed against her brain and she gasped in terror. Strangers' minds were trying to force their way through her mental defenses. The psychic walls she's built so carefully under Grandfather's tutelage. They were trying to get inside of her.

She slammed mental barricades shut and pushed them away. They came back again harder and stronger, trying to pry her mind open with the strength of their wills.

In a stone room, in a high tower, Susanatrevalar began to scream.

* * *

The Doctor strode into his mother's office with wrathful steps. The boots and military jacket he wore only making him angrier. His hair, his wonderful dark curls, had been shorn, the better to wear a shock helmet, his lovely green velvet coat hung untouched in the closet room of his TARDIS. He was now an active duty officer, something he had fought against tooth and nail, and was required to wear a uniform on duty at all times.

He'd failed at stopping this stupid war, failed at keeping himself out of it, and now he'd failed to protect Susan from Rassilon's stupidity and short-sightedness.

His mother looked up from her desk and met his eyes with a look filled with both sympathy and grief. He pulled himself together, knowing that she wasn't the enemy, but his anger was burning so brightly inside of him. All he felt these days was burning rage and a sick helplessness that ate him up inside.

"They still won't let me see her!" he ground out and she nodded sadly.

"Oh little love, I know. I tried as well, but the Visionaries refused me." She rose and crossed to him, holding open her arms and letting him walk into her embrace. Her face was drawn and weary, her eyes shadowed with grief and the same feeling of powerlessness that haunted him as well.

"What are they doing to her?" he cried, agonized by the thought of what Susan must be going through. He knew full well what the training led to, he'd watched his niece broken down and destroyed so many years ago. Now she was a devastated ruin that could do nothing but prophesize, she could barely feed herself, let alone laugh and smile as she used to. He wouldn't let that happen to Susan, he wouldn't!

"Omega only knows," she answered and her voice was heavy with regret. She'd had little time to grow to know her great-granddaughter, since he'd stolen the child away at so young an age. She hadn't seen her since Susan was a mere eight years old. But that child was their flesh and blood and he knew that it tore at his mother to have failed to protect her, just as it was destroying the Doctor. They had both been horrified by what had happened to his brother's youngest.

"I should have taken her somewhere else, I knew it was getting dangerous," he berated himself.

"Where could you have taken her that they wouldn't eventually track her down?" his mother asked him, stepping back to look up into his eyes. "They dragged Romana back from E-Space, for suns' sake!" He nodded, knowing she was right, but wishing that there was more that he could have done.

"I don't know, really," he answered and scrubbed at his head with a sigh. "I'm to report to barracks tonight, they're shipping me out to the front in the morning," he informed her and she simply nodded. He'd figured that she knew already, but it was only polite to inform her, as Head of the Family. His father's death ten years ago had left her with full responsibility over the whole Gene Line and he didn't envy her. He was quite glad that his brother was next in line, with his nephews and nieces after him, and that he himself was well out of the succession. His brother would enjoy it anyway, he'd always been an insufferable egotist, after all.

He was well aware that, by sending him into battle, the Council was getting him out of the way, making sure he wasn't able to agitate about Susan. The brief notice they'd sent him, telling him that she'd been "Finally found and safely returned to the Visionaries' Tower" had been an insulting bit of propaganda that had only served to enrage him further. They'd all known he'd taken her away to keep her from that miserable hellhole.

"I will do what I can, little love, you know that," his mother assured him and he sighed.

"I don't know that there is much we _can_ do, Mother," he hated admitting that. He hated having no plan, no hope, and no idea in his head on how to save her. "I'm being sent to the Cruciform, I'll try to send word to you."

"Be safe, little love," she told him and he kissed her cheek, before leaving, bitter regrets and cold despair trailing behind him.

* * *

Susan screamed and writhed on the cold stone floor. She let her fury and outrage fill her mind, smothering the mind numbing fear that wanted to flood her. Stay angry, she told herself, use it as a wall against them. She was chained down and the cold was seeping into her from the floor, while the manacles cut her wrists and kept her from easing her position.

Somewhere nearby her unseen torturers were attacking her again. They were beating at her thoughts, trying to turn them against her, but she was no child to be broken by their games, and she threw her disgust with them back in their teeth. Her courage had never been great, but she was being tempered by the fires of this silent war, forged into something far stronger than she'd known herself to be. She was never going to let them win.

They'd chained her after she'd bitten one of her guards. She didn't regret it. The bastard had tried to cop a feel of her breast through the thin fabric of her robe. She added her outrage at that to the walls she was building. She was turning her mind into a battlefield, she built bulwarks, laid traps, turned her thoughts into a maze to defend her, to keep them from reaching her center. As long as she could keep them back, she couldn't be broken. It was only if they got into her center that she was vulnerable. She had a plan for that as well; of course, she had a plan now for everything. She smiled, but it was a grim and bitter stretching of her lips.

They'd been trying for four months now and she was still holding out. If she could wear them down, maybe if she could hold out long enough, they'd give up and release her.

It was a forlorn hope, but it was the only one she had.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 – War is Hell

Romana, her uniform creased and stained crawled after him. The Dalek slaves were sapping underneath the star port and the two of them were working their way through the cramped and dirty sewer system to put a stop to it.

He'd been thrilled to have Romana assigned as his second. He knew he could trust her at his back. But, he hadn't realized that he was being sent on all the most dangerous and desperate missions and she was being sent with him. Being his friend was putting her in harm's way. He crushed down the anger that roused in him as well. He could do nothing to change it and his anger was doing him no good at the moment.

"Got a reading," she muttered and he nodded and stopped. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the ceiling until he found the explosive charge that the slaves had placed there. Working slowly and carefully, he disarmed it and then handed it back to Romana.

"That's twelve," he told her with a grimace and she grinned at him, her teeth flashing white in the darkness, her face smudged with dirt and worse things.

"Only fifteen more to go!" she encouraged him and he tried to smile back, though he suspected that it was a fairly pathetic attempt. "Any word about Susan?" she asked softly, her eyes shining with compassion and he shook his head.

"Nothing," he answered.

"Maybe that's good news, Doctor," she suggested. "If she's holding out against them, they'd be unlikely to tell you wouldn't they?"

"I don't know how I feel about it either way. If she's holding out, then what kind of hell is she going through? If they've broken her, then what sort of state is she in? The only thing I do know is that she isn't dead, she'd still there in my head," he sighed out. "Either way, she's suffering and I can do nothing."

"You are doing something, you're staying alive," she reproved him. "Wherever she is, she knows you're still alive as well. She must know that you will find a way, somehow, sometime, to get her out of there." Romana's faith in him was comforting. He nodded and tried to hold tight to his faith in the universe.

"I will find a way," he promised and they continued to crawl through the sewers on their deadly mission, trying to find some light in the current darkness surrounding them.

* * *

The prying tendrils of thought from the Visionaries who surrounded her kept trying to break through, but she refused them entry. She was tired, she was hungry, she was thirsty, she was scared, but she held the memory of being loved in her mind and wrapped herself in righteous fury.

"He was an animal, a lower life form, not worthy of a Time Lord," they murmured to her mind, it was a sneaking nasty thought and she held her memory of David's kisses up as a shield against it. He was a better person than any of these mad old women with their stringy hair and yellowing teeth, minds shattered apart by too many years of following the pathways of the future. They were tugging at her memories of him, trying to erase them from her mind.

"You'll never take him from me! You can't make me forget him!" Susan screamed back at them, scrabbling at his image and holding it close to her. She'd never let go of the time she'd had with him. "David!" she sobbed, pressing his image into her hearts.

"You are the prophesied one, you are the 'Arkytior', you will unfold the future and give us the Final Vision!" another voice wheedled, trying to lure her with promises of glory and power.

She laughed at this one; it had no power over her. Together, she and David had dug fields to plant food and feed their children. They'd buried the dead, cooked and cleaned, built and restored; they'd helped bring London alive again. That was all the glory and accomplishment she'd ever need. They'd raised so many wonderful children together, held them when they wept, and soothed them when they hurt. They'd taught them to read, to write, to dream, and to think. That was real power, molding a generation and sending them out.

She'd taught herself medicine, crouching over textbooks by the light of a lantern, built a lab for herself from the rubble, and become a doctor for the whole area, saving lives, fighting diseases, beating back death. She didn't need to be more than that.

She was David Campbell's wife, the Doctor's granddaughter, descendant of a long line of Time Lords who were known for brilliance and courage. She didn't care about prophecies, destinies, or fate. She would make her own destiny, build her own fate, with her own will, her own hands, and the love she held in her hearts.

"You're alone here girl, we are many, and you are one, you cannot fight us forever." That whisper was more frightening to her, for she knew there was truth in it. She had to sleep sometimes, brief naps that left her vulnerable, even with the booby traps she'd laid. Eventually, she would have to rest for a longer period, and that would leave her vulnerable.

But, she had a plan for that too.

* * *

The Doctor realized that they were trapped. Romana, her hand clutching his, had the same realization in her eyes. The Daleks had rigged the entire structure with bombs and there wasn't enough time to disarm or run. This was it.

"Doctor," Romana whispered and then the explosions started.

The floor collapsed beneath them and the Doctor shoved Romana through the break, diving after her as fire erupted above their heads. They landed hard and the Doctor rolled, Romana scrabbling away from falling mortar and blocks, both of them running with desperate, adrenaline-fueled haste away from the collapsing building.

They staggered towards a sheltering wall and leaned against it, panting and wheezing.

"That was way too close," Romana gasped out, her voice shaky from fear and adrenaline.

"Yeah," he groaned in agreement. The explosion was still ringing in his ears and the fading terror was making him tremble in reaction. A muffled sob alerted him that Romana had slid down the wall and was crying.

He settled himself down beside her and gathered her against his chest. Her shoulders were shaking and her body trembling and did the only thing he could think of to comfort her. He kissed her.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and responded with a fierce aggression that surprised him. He could feel her emotions through the touch of their skin and he knew that she was seeking comfort, needing to feel alive, and he could give her that.

It was something that they both needed, after all.

* * *

The Master scrubbed himself in the shower, trying to wash the blood and soot from his hair. He watched the red and grey rivulets running down his body and into the drain and tried not to think about how he'd gotten the gash on his thigh. He hadn't even noticed the injury before and that just told him how bad the fight had been.

War was hell all right. Whatever primitive ape had come up with that line had been quite correct. So much for Rassilon's 'short, victorious war', he snorted. The Daleks had proven themselves to be as cunning and devious as the Master himself was. As for ruthless, well, they exceeded him by a factor of ten.

The Master had wanted to conquer worlds; this required that the worlds still be habitable when he was done. The Daleks only wanted to obliterate other life forms. Their eerie chants of "Exterminate" rang through his dreams now and he shuddered at the sound of it.

He wasn't sure how they could win a war against a foe that didn't care about its losses and didn't need to keep the worlds it conquered. While the Time Lords were stuck protecting and garrisoning worlds, the Daleks just came, destroyed, and moved on, like a plague of malevolent locusts. Just to stay alive, they might be forced to leave their allies to fend for themselves. It wasn't good strategy, but they might have no choice.

He shivered as another time line collapsed around him. The Daleks had gone back in time and stopped the Severna from evolving into allies that the Time Lords could use. With a groan, he prepared himself for the call that would soon come. He'd be sent back soon to repair that and return the Severna from oblivion.

On the plus side, he was suddenly twenty years younger, the gash on his leg was gone and the water now ran clean. He shook his head in disgust and got out of the shower.

* * *

The Doctor sat down on the edge of the bed and Romana collapsed beside him and leaned her head against his shoulder, blond hair cascading across his back. He draped an arm about her and let his head rest on hers.

"That could have gone better," he commented and she snorted.

He turned his face towards the huge viewscreen that showed the world lying below them. It was pretty, mottled green, blue and gold, the colors all swirled and muddied by the storms that were raging across its oceans.

"Who knew that Viridian weapons systems were vulnerable to parasitic infections," Romana sighed out. It had been a very unpleasant surprise, but he had managed to switch the systems over and repair the damage before they'd lost more than a third of their forces. He closed his eyes against the remembered sounds, the screams of the dying mingling with the triumphant shrilling of the Daleks. He'd turned it around, and they'd defeated the enemy, but so many had died, so many that shouldn't have.

"I was not cut out to be a soldier," he informed her and she turned her head and pulled him into a hungry kiss. He fell into it, reaching for a moment of softness, of warmth.

They used each other's bodies to drive out their anguish and the horrors of war, but they both knew it was only a temporary reprieve. In a few hours, they had to go lead an attack against a Dalek outpost and it would all begin again.

* * *

Andred was sitting in the drop ship, his wife at his side, and fear was uncoiling in his gut, not for himself, but for her. He was a Time Lord, capable of regenerating, of coming back from the dead, if necessary, but his Leela was only human. If she died, that was it; there were no second chances for her.

He'd begged her to stay safe at home on Gallifrey, but she'd just glared at him.

"And who exactly will take care of you?" she asked. "You're a rubbish fighter. You'll lose half a dozen new faces in a month!" His arguments had fallen on deaf ears and now here they were, about to face combat together.

"Leela," he began and she turned and gave him a disgusted look.

"Listen, Andred, let's get through today. If at the end of this one day, you still think you're the one who'll be protecting me, then I will go straight home, alright?" she challenged him and he nodded in reluctant agreement.

At the end of the day, the entire squad sat on Andred until he agreed to let her stay, while Leela sat smugly by the fire pit, cleaning the collection of weapons she'd taken from those she'd killed.

He decided to give in gracefully; it really was his only option.

* * *

Susan had held out against them for nearly eight months now, or thirty years, if you counted the collapsed time lines she'd lived through. Her Time Sense was the only thing that kept her centered anymore, there was no day or night in her cell, just the delivery of scraps of food at random intervals. She might be going crazy, but it was hard for her to tell. She hadn't seen anyone but her guards in a very long time and they never spoke to her.

She had started talking to herself just to hear her own voice, just to hear anything but the oppressive silence. She leaned against the wall, her chains clanking as she moved, and felt herself sliding into a doze. She set her traps and bolstered her defenses before she let herself relax, just a bit.

Instantly the attacks began again and she was jolted back into awareness by the mental invasion. She threw up walls and defenses, retreating into her maze, waiting to see what they would send at her next.

The Seekers were breaching Susan's defenses. They had reached the Maze and were blasting their way through it. They were getting too close, she realized and she didn't have enough strength left to protect herself. Her center was threatened, if they took that it was all over, she'd be just another witless Seer. It was time to put her plan into action.

The guard had been careless; he'd never noticed her taking the knife from his boot when he'd been fighting with her. They hadn't seen it hidden in her sleeve when they brought her food. She worked it free now, letting it drop into her hand.

She rolled herself over as far as she could, straining against her chains, and stretched her shackled fingers as far as she could reach. She'd practiced to get the motion just right, to make sure that she could manage it when the time came.

With a grim smile, she impaled her throat on the blade. Blood gushed out and she grabbed at the minds of those who were invading her thoughts, preventing them from escaping. As she triggered her regeneration, she burned them up with her, feeding them her own death. Their screams were deeply satisfying as she died.

* * *

The Master returned to Gallifrey with relief. He'd never imagined he'd ever be glad to see the orange skies and white capped mountains of his homeworld, not unless he was returning as a victorious conqueror.

But the things he'd seen in the last six months had beaten even at his withered hearts. The Daleks had burned Harmony to the ground. He had stood there, launching missiles into their fleet, but it hadn't been enough to keep the surface safe from bombardment. The image he'd seen from his TARDIS, of a child screaming and running, his clothing alight, his skin starting to blacken, haunted even him. He could still hear the shrieking in his dreams.

He'd thought himself inured to all suffering, uncaring of the fates of others, especially lower life forms, but he'd been wrong. Even he had his limits and the Daleks had pushed far past them.

He strode into the rooms that the Council had provided him. His father's home was forbidden to him these days. His mouth twisted in unaccustomed regret. His father was a narrow minded fool, who couldn't see his son's greatness, but he wished desperately for the solace of his childhood room. To be away from the Capital, to be somewhere safe and familiar, he wanted that suddenly, even as he despised himself for his weakness.

Instead, he ripped his uniform jacket off and threw it at one of the utilitarian chairs that sat in the living area, looking as lost and uncomfortable as he felt. He made his way to the bathroom, showering and changing into a clean uniform for the first time in weeks. He hated being dirty and this war was nothing but blood, soot, and fire. He never felt clean anymore.

He stared at himself in the mirror. Black hair, black goatee, black eyes, he wondered if it had been some subtle joke on the part of the technicians who'd revived him. His face was hollow with exhaustion; the planes of it sharpened by too many sleepless nights and missed meals. The nose was more patrician than he would have chosen, but the brow was broad and the chin acceptable. He was good-looking, handsome even, but there was something unyielding in his features. It was an arrogant, proud face and he felt it suited him. He still wasn't quite used to it, though. He barely had time to shave now, let alone look in a mirror for any other reason.

Nine months and he hadn't figured out how to deactivate the 'leash' Rassilon had put on him. Scans had shown him that the mechanism was wired into his brain, was welded to his entire neurological system, and ran through his hearts as well. There was no way to remove it without killing him, or at least he hadn't found a way yet. He wasn't sure that that it would survive regeneration, it might be rejected as a foreign object, but then again, it might not.

"You are ordered to report to the High Council," a computer's voice informed him and he snarled in fury. Ordered? No one 'ordered' him to do anything, he was the Master! He clenched his fists on the sink's edge and controlled his rage with a savage ruthlessness. It wouldn't do to lose control now. He had to keep playing along, being 'good', so that when his revenge did come, it would be a complete surprise.

"I am coming," he answered, cold and calm once more.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 – Blood and Tears

The Doctor sat, head in hands, and tried to remember a time before the War. Sarah Jane's face rose in his mind and he smiled, though as smiles went, this one was rather tired and sad. She had been crawling through a duct, gotten stuck, and was near to tears. He'd thrown some half-hearted insults at her and she'd gotten so mad at him that she'd dragged herself out of the conduit, just so she could hit him. He laughed softly at the memory, using it as a fortress around his hearts, defending him against the horrors all about him.

Gurneys sped by, wounded soldiers groaning and screaming, the dead piling up along the walls as the overwhelmed hospital fought against the rising tide. Somewhere in one of the surgeries, Romana was being put back together again. She'd been badly injured and he had carried her here over his shoulder, despite his own injuries.

His arm was broken, his head was throbbing, and a few ribs were cracked from the impact of his body hitting the bulkhead during the last attack. The dull ache of his pain was nothing though in comparison to the misery of these others. He dragged himself upright and went to try to assist. It didn't matter if he was injured. He was the Doctor and he had to do something.

* * *

The Master listened to the Council as they explained their problem.

"One girl? You can't break one girl?" he laughed aloud, he couldn't help it. "What makes you think you can defeat the Dalek Empire when you can't even conquer one child!" he mocked them, vastly amused.

"She is not just any child, Master, she is the Doctor's granddaughter," Councilor Flavia told him, her voice sad and her face full of shame, and the laughter died abruptly in his throat. He hated the Doctor, but not so much that he'd wish that sort of agony on him. They'd once been best friends, close as brothers, before the drumbeat had marched him away to war and destiny. "She's already burned out the minds of three Seekers," the Councilor added. Her white blonde hair was pulled up in an elaborate arrangement of braids, elegant and refined, but her blue eyes were as bleak as ice.

"Good for her," he snorted. "I won't do your dirty work for you, Rassilon," he continued, snarling at the Lord President. "I refuse. I have no reason to harm a mere child."

He watched Rassilon's face go dark with rage. He knew what was coming, but he didn't care. For all she was his worst enemy's offspring, she was a Time Lady. He didn't maul his own kind for no reason and she'd never done anything to him. Time Lords were a superior species and he had rules.

The agony was worse the second time. Rassilon must have turned it up to a higher level. He was on the floor, screaming, and there was no dignity being left to him at all. When it finally stopped he was panting and wheezing, shaking with reaction and even the pale, horrified faces of the Council gave him no comfort.

"I believe you were telling us about how you were going to go straight to the Tower to assist the Visionaries with that girl?" Rassilon drawled, his eyes devouring the sight of the other man's helplessness. The Master was anti-social and narcissistic, but he wasn't a sadist, he got no pleasure from torturing others, it was just a necessary part of doing business sometimes. He didn't do it for fun. Rassilon looked as though he was enjoying himself.

"Yes. Indeed," he choked out past the bile rising in his throat. Those wretched fools all thought that _he_ was the monster, when they should have been looking at their beloved leader instead. He dragged himself upright and kept his eyes down, so the glittering hatred in them wouldn't be evident.

"Don't forget, dog, I have ahold of your leash and I can strangle you with it," were Rassilon's parting words to him. The Master marched out of the room with as much dignity as he could muster.

* * *

The guards dragged her into another room that she barely noticed. There were never less than four guards with her now. They'd learned caution with her. She'd bitten and scratched, kicked and gouged, taking any sort of vengeance that she could on her captors. The guards were skittish around her, keeping her at arm's length. She snapped at one of them and he jumped back, they were afraid of her now and that made her smile.

She still didn't know what she looked like. Two months since her regeneration and they still wouldn't let her near a mirror, in case she found a way to break it and slash herself again. All she knew was that dark brown hair hung around her face and that her body was now whipcord thin beneath the white robe.

Her new hands, so slender and frail seeming, were cuffed before her, though she'd learned to slip out of any and all of the restraints they'd put on her. She'd been taught the basics by dear Harry, so very long ago, and she'd perfected his lessons by now. She'd had plenty of time to practice after all and nothing much else to do. She suspected that her work with the cuffs and manacles was one of the few things keeping her sane these days.

She was thrown to the cold stone floor and the guards fled the room, in more than their usual fear. She raised her head to see a man sitting in a plush velvet chair in front of her. He was good-looking, tall, lean, dressed in a Captain's uniform, hair cropped close for a combat helmet. His eyes were bitter black pools that seemed to suck at her. She knew who he was and she could guess why he was here. She'd seen him once before, though she hadn't realized then who he was. She also hadn't seen him at his best.

Her grandfather had told her many stories of this man, stories from when they'd been children together, from when they'd been at the Academy, the laughter, the camaraderie they'd shared. Grandfather had loved him like a brother, trusted him, and supported him against those who'd been cruel to him.

In return, Grandfather had been betrayed, attacked, and nearly killed several times. The Master had gone mad and had become everything that Grandfather most despised. This man, sitting casually swinging his leg, like they were both attending a particularly dull party, was her grandfather's sworn enemy. He'd broken the heart of the person she loved most in the universe and that alone was reason enough to hate him.

She looked away, determined to show the same indifference that he was showing her, and realized there was a window here. It was night, but she could see the stars. Ten months of consecutive time since she'd seen them, though it was more like fifty years of subjective memory, she had ten months of torture and pain imprinted on her body, but so much more was written across her mind. The stars were the most beautiful things she'd ever seen.

"Name?" he asked her in a bored drawl and she glanced up at him through the curtain of her hair.

"Susan," she answered and then turned away again, drinking up the sight of the night sky, and ignoring him, though it was hard. She'd had no one to talk to in so very long and he was liked a caged tiger, sleek and deadly, watching her with a predator's eyes.

"I am the Master; you will refer to me as such," he announced and she laughed aloud. After everything she'd gone through, all she'd suffered, she wasn't going to roll over and give up now. She'd see them all in hell first.

"Not bloody likely," she retorted, still chuckling. He struck at her mind, slapping at her thoughts to punish her, but she held strong against him and looked up, through the curtain of her hair, grinning openly now.

"Is that supposed to impress me?" she asked, taunting him. If he thought such childish attacks would hurt her he was in for a surprise.

He rose from his chair and knelt on the floor in front of her. His eyes were boring into hers, black as the night sky, black as death, and she stared back, defiant and unafraid.

"No, but this is," he answered and grabbed her head between his hands, forcing his way into her mind with contemptuous ease and she was helpless to stop him.

She shrieked in anger and pain, kicking and fighting him, but he clamped her against him with arms and legs like iron bars. She couldn't escape the physical contact that allowed him so much greater access to her mind. She slipped her hands from the cuffs, ignoring the stinging pain of her wrists as she lost skin to the process, and struck out at him. He grabbed her hands and forced her to the floor, pinning her beneath him in an obscene parody of a lover's embrace.

"Don't touch me! Don't you dare touch me!" she screamed, bucking like a mad thing, but now it was his turn to laugh. The sound of it chilled her hearts and brought tears to her eyes. Hatred for him burned brightly in her.

* * *

The Master had her underneath him and it was somewhat distracting. It had been too long since he'd had a woman in his bed and she smelled like roses and warmth. He shook off the thought and dived into her mind, pushing past the surprisingly well constructed defenses she'd erected. He could see the evidence of previous battles, places where her mind had been scorched and defiled. It made him angry to see such clumsiness. These idiots couldn't have been more incompetent if they'd tried.

She was not unattractive, he thought idly. She had long brown hair and huge emerald eyes, which stared through you in a curiously feline way. She was far too skinny of course, half-starved and abused as she was, but when she had looked up at him through that silken cascade of hair, eyes defiant and full of fire, something had stirred in him. He really must have been too long without a woman, yes, that was all it was. When this was done, he'd hire himself a couple of girls and take care of that.

Her mental landscape was blasted and war-torn. It reminded him far too much of the War he was fighting elsewhere. Barbed wire ran across the ground, smoke choked him, and the banshee wails of psychic alarms were ringing in his ears.

He shredded the wire, pulling it apart with a simple thought form. He cleared the smoke with a gust of pure will, and silenced the alarms with a brutal strike into her mind. He felt her shudder as he crushed her defenses, though she still fought him, her body twisting in a futile effort to escape him.

He reached into her psyche, rooting around in her fears and phobias. He found a memory of the French Revolution, a tumbrel, herself and another, a stupid ape, being led to execution, the crowd jeering and cheering, demanding blood. Her fear hadn't been for herself, she knew that she could regenerate, but for her friend, the ridiculous braying thing beside her. He felt nothing but contempt for such a foolish child, to care so much for her pets! He pulled the fear out and threw it at her, made her feel the sense of helpless failure once again, twisting it like a blade in her guts, letting her see how powerless she was against him.

She had laid traps everywhere, trying to keep her mind safe from invaders and he had to be cautious to avoid them, but he soon found another memory and dug it out, studying it with interest. It was the image of a man, a human man. He was dark-haired, and eyed, not unlike himself, in fact, with a warrior's heart and courage to spare. He was pulling her down into a lingering kiss, heat erupting in her as his lips moved across hers. It was her first, she'd only just matured, stepping away from her childhood slowly, reluctantly, and this man caught her hearts and pushed her to adulthood in a single stolen moment.

Jealousy erupted in him and he was appalled at his own reaction. How could he envy that stupid lumbering ape? How could he feel cheated and denied? How could he want to have been the one she'd been kissing? He couldn't possibly desire some vapid schoolgirl! Preposterous!

"Get out!" she shouted, still resisting him tooth and nail. With a feeling of bitter joy, he twisted the memory of her young lover, turning it into something dirty and shameful, throwing it back at her. She cried out in denial, blocking him with her love for that man. Love? She'd loved that monkey, that amoeba? Fury raced through him and he lashed her with it, driving her back, headed for her center, determined to end this contest between them quickly. He'd not wanted to hurt her, but this; it was enough to make him want to rip her apart.

"When we're done here, you will call me by my name, you will call me Master," he ground out, incandescent with a rage he didn't understand. She was still struggling against him, long past the point where every other mind had buckled and submitted and he was torn between fury and a grudging respect for her spirit.

"I'll never use your name, you bastard! I'll never call you that! The rest may bend knee to you, you sick psychopath, but you will never be something that can break me!" She screamed her defiance and howled her rage back at him. She was a fiery tornado of destruction, but he held her in his hands.

He found himself holding her carefully and far more gently than he might have, though again he didn't understand quite why. She was confusing him and it made him even angrier. He reached for more to use against her, but the flame of her was strong, she fought him, turning everything he'd done to her into her own strength again.

She whipped through him, evading his own defenses, and pulled a memory from his mind. It was himself and the Doctor, both of them so young, laughing and whispering to each other from the crook of a huge Silverleaf tree. Gorging themselves on fruit and dribbling it on their school robes. She showed him that younger self, made him feel the love and warmth of brotherhood again and he writhed away from her mental touch with an bitter cry.

"You'll pay for that, girl!" he told her and she laughed and fled from his reaching, slipping into another part of her mental maze.

"Only if you catch me, _Koschei_," she retorted, using the name she'd plucked from his soul, throwing it back at him, a gauntlet laid down.

Susan was turning his attacks against him, ripping at him with the same savage ferocity he was using against her. He was furious, every trick he threw against her, and she deflected back at him. He grabbed her laughter and turned it to tears and she threw his schemes and failures in his face, shaming him with all that he had never achieved.

She was young, inexperienced, he should have had her mind in tatters already, but she learned from him so quickly, that no sooner had he found an attack, than she was already constructing a defense. He was shocked to discover that she was equally as strong a telepath as he was. The Doctor was close, but had never been his equal in this area, yet this slip of a girl had him on the defensive as often as he was the aggressor.

She danced out of his reach, turning his blade of guilt against him and he was impaled on it as she fled again, glancing back over her shoulder, those green eyes hard with resolve. No wonder she'd been able to fight those morons off for so long, no wonder she'd burned out three Seekers, she was incredible. He found himself grinning and was annoyed with himself. What the hell was wrong with him, anyway? Why couldn't he focus on destroying her?

* * *

Susan reached into his memories again, found a moment of vulnerability and twisted it into an arrow of thought. She launched it at him, striking true, and he cried out at the pain of it. She saw a girl from his Academy days, beautiful, proud, a genius, who'd been Grandfather's lover. She'd seduced Koschei. He'd believed her lies of love and forever, only to be betrayed in turn. Friendships pulled apart, hearts broken, all because the woman had wanted to 'experiment' with their emotions.

Susan was appalled by the hurt done to her grandfather, but she also had a moment's pity for the young man the Master had once been, who'd loved too well and too much. She squelched the momentary weakness and sped on. Whatever his past might be, he was here to destroy her and she couldn't let her compassion be her undoing.

That she felt a sudden bitter hatred for the Rani, she put down to what she had done to Grandfather. The alternative was unthinkable.

* * *

He followed after Susan, tracking her like a wolf hunting a deer. She was fleet-footed and graceful, moving thorough the landscapes of her mental battlefield like a streaking star, but he was old, canny, and far more experienced than she was. He'd played these games for centuries, brought down kings and slaves alike with the strength of his will. He was wounded, bleeding from her attacks, but he'd injured her as well. She played the game well.

Strange, he thought, how this had become more a game to him than a serious contest. She was very much her grandfather's child, he realized, she had that same intelligence that made him want to test her, to push himself in competition with her. Breaking her would be a crime, destroying something so enthralling was foolish. He'd do it to save himself, but it would be such a waste. It made him angry that he was forced to do such a thing.

She was a not even three hundred years old, mostly untrained, yet she was holding him off and it was exhilarating. In fact, he realized that he was having fun, reveling in the simple enjoyment of a good chase. He had spent so much of his life surrounded by intellects far duller than his that he'd grown bored and restless. This was the first time in a long time that he could simply enjoy a battle of wits. It was a mental chess game and, at the end of it, there would be a girl with beautiful emerald eyes. He grinned, fierce and hungry, and sped off after her with greater speed. He had forgotten that the object was her destruction, and now just wanted to catch her, to win this game.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 – The Game

Susan had laid her traps well, and led him a merry chase through the maze she'd constructed. She could feel him behind her, sense his determination, but also something else, something that startled her; he was amused, enjoying the chase, reveling in the game, but there was also something else. He was reacting to her very much as a man would, she could feel his sudden interest.

Her hearts were pounding in alarm and there were other things stirring in her that she refused to put name to. She had to defeat him, she had to win, and she would not be broken by him or anyone else.

Her plan had seemed so simple and effective, but there was something happening between them that confused her. She had seen too much of his mind, she realized. He wasn't just a story to her anymore, he was a person. He was also a man, an attractive one, and she had been alone for far too long. No one had touched her in so long and it was distracting her that was all, she decided.

She still hated him, of course, despite all of that. She'd do whatever it took to save herself, even to the point of destroying him. Wouldn't she? She couldn't afford doubts, and yet, she remembered the way her grandfather had spoken of the Master, with pity, love, and grief. Even at the worst moments, when he'd done something horrific, her grandfather had still mourned the loss of his oldest friend.

She couldn't afford her grandfather's kindness, though, not now, not when it could mean losing her mind. She strengthened her resolve and readied herself for the right moment.

Here, he was coming, his guard was lowered as he sought for her, one more moment, and then… Now!

* * *

He plunged into the deepest part of her, determined to bend her will, to possess her, to make her into something that he owned.

He realized his error in a heartbeat, as she rushed past him, out of her own mind and deep into his own. He threw up defenses as fast as he could, but she was already inside of him, before he could muster them to any effect. The schoolgirl had turned the tables on him!

* * *

She fell through a maddening drumbeat that seemed to batter at her mind. Everywhere she looked he was webbed with black cords. They were wrapped around every single part of his awareness, binding him up, turning all his best impulses against him. His mind had been twisted and broken in many of the same ways that the Seekers had tried to break and bind her own. It was like looking into a mirror that was distorted and cracked.

She clutched at the cords as she fell, grabbing and tearing at them. They were horrible, wrong, filled with malice and the enjoyment of cruelty. She found true hate for whoever had placed them there. Whatever had been done to him was calculated, purposeful, but she couldn't stop to grasp the reasons for it all during her headlong flight. Through it all, that drumbeat roared in her head, the sound of madness, punishing her endlessly.

She landed on a hard surface, the sky above was dark, and the Untempered Schism was standing nearby, trying to lure her with promises of the future. She turned her back on that unsubtle enticement; the future could take care of itself. The present was more than enough trouble for her.

A sad whimpering noise caught her attention and she turned to find a child, huddled against the cold ground, weeping. His memory, she realized. It was himself at eight, huge blue eyes wide with terror. Something had been done to him, something terrible. Pity clutched at her. He'd been nothing but a child and they had tried to break him apart. She paused long enough to stroke the fine dark hair and soothe him. He'd been so young, so fragile.

She could sense him coming again, a cloud of destructive fire and rage and she dropped even deeper, letting herself fall towards his center. She would get there and pull him apart as he had intended to pull her apart. She'd tear into him to save herself.

She fell unexpectedly into a dazzling light. His center glowed like a nebula, filled with shifting colors, and glittering, glowing tendrils of his brilliance were whipped into complex forms by a mind so agile and intricate that it was like luminous spun threads. She was struck dumb by the incredible beauty of him. All her plans to destroy fell away. He was too beautiful, too rare, too precious to harm. Her arms fell to her sides and she felt tears starting in her eyes.

Turning to look back, she saw the drumbeat, the webbing, the horror that had been laid upon him, driving him to madness and a fury to match her own. It was appalling. It was wrong.

"You!" he shouted and his mind turned on her, diving inside her soul, seeking to drive her out, to destroy her. She opened herself to him, without thinking, reaching for some way to fix him.

* * *

The Master lashed out at her. How dare she strip him of his defenses like this? He plunged into the heart of her, ready to destroy her for her impertinence and then, he stilled in wonder.

Beautiful

A golden sun burned inside of her, she was fire and light, warmth, compassion, and a boundless love that he could crawl inside of and rest in. He saw a brilliant mind that leaped from thought to thought, putting together connections and ideas with blinding speed. She was strong, proud, and defiant. She was a fighter whose courage and indomitable will burned like a supernova at the heart of her. She was so alone, so desperately lonely, so hounded, and so afraid. He felt pity and admiration uncoiling in his heart, his rage fading as he took in the essence of her.

As she saw him, he saw her, and then it was too late for either of them. Heat and fire blazed between them, the connection they'd inadvertently created was now seeking completion. He felt half-starved and he knew exactly what he needed to feed his soul. He needed her.

His hands shifted on her, turning his pinioning of her limbs into an embrace, his mouth plundering hers, his mind reaching into hers, seeking to make them into one thing. Her hands were in his hair and her body was pressing against his, whimpering with desire. He was frantic with hunger and need, wanting her so much it was a fire in his blood.

Visions burst inside of their minds, he saw a TARDIS exploding, everything that ever had been, lost in an instant. He saw the two of them, twined together on a bed, making love, bodies and minds joined. He saw a future without her where everything burned and fell into destruction. He saw them holding each other and the universe rebuilding itself around them. He saw another where they flew into the Void, tangled together into one being, seeking to warn the Doctor about some terrible calamity. Terror raced through them both, the fear was imbedded in the visions themselves and they painted themselves across both their minds.

He shoved it all aside, intent on making her his, on branding her with his mouth, his hands. He no longer cared about anything else. He was pulling at her robe and her hands were tugging at his clothes as well, and they were falling into each other, deeper and deeper, with no desire but one; to merge into unity.

He was roughly grabbed and dragged back. Voices were shouting, and people were flooding into the room. He snarled and fought, his eyes never leaving hers. She stared back at him, fighting to reach him, as she too was held and then pinned. He raged that they dared to touch her.

"Leave her alone! She's mine!" he roared and her eyes on his held no fear, no dismay, just a mirror of his own need echoing in her. "Don't touch her!" he shouted and then he was hauled from the room. Once eye contact was broken, he came abruptly to his senses. Cold, shaken, and suddenly sane again, he stopped fighting and went still.

What the hells had just happened to him?

* * *

Susan flared and melted at his touch, his mouth was searing her and she was in his mind, tearing at the black cords, frantically trying to free him, trying to release him from his slavery. She wanted him so much, needed to surrender to this thing between them that was so much greater than either of them, but she was also working her way deeper into his psyche, trying to heal everything broken inside of him.

The centuries of his life had tugged the cords out of their original positions, but she looked into them and understanding flared through her, knowledge poured into her, and she tore at them with greater ferocity still. She knew what they were, why they had been placed there, and why it was critical for them to be removed.

She was being pulled from him, the Seekers were yanking her from his arms and she wanted to scream at them to let her go, to let her go to him, because she had to finish what she was doing, she had to free his mind and bring him back to sanity.

Too quickly they were separated and the intense joining was broken. She tasted the bitter knowledge of her failure.

He was not free and he was still mad.

She was dragged from the room and tossed back onto the floor of her cell. She curled up into a ball, dazed and anxious, tortured by the visions, but especially by what had come with them.

Oh God, he was beautiful inside, a glorious crystalline artwork shining in the darkness. She had never seen anything so incandescent, so lovely, and so joyous. She had never wanted anything as much as she had wanted to fall into him. His eyes had burned her, and oh, how she had wanted to burn.

But now she was lying on the cold stone, and the reality of what had happened was too much for her. She could still feel him inside of her, still wanted more, and yet she was so scared. The black cords that tied him up, that twisted through him, they were a wall between them, and it was a wall that she wasn't sure she could ever breech.

There were too many of them and they had grown into his mind, wrapped themselves about his identity. Even if she could cut most of them away, they were now a part of him, part of his soul. He had grown up with them in his head and they had integrated into his personality. Whoever he would have been, had they not twisted him, she would never know. That person was gone forever.

She felt the grief and sorrow of that keenly. She mourned for the child he'd been, bound up and sacrificed to a future he had no knowledge of. Susan was filled with hurt for him and also fears for herself. Where did that leave her? Somehow, she'd ended up tied to a man who wasn't even master of his own mind, a man who'd been ripped apart as a child and rebuilt into a lifeboat for Gallifrey.

His whole being had been turned to one purpose; to survive at all costs, to get to Earth, and to let nothing stop him from building a bridge into the past. Everything they'd done to him was designed towards that aim and they didn't care what became of him, what horrors he'd unleash because of it, nothing mattered except that Rassilon not be allowed to die. This is what she'd found and this is what she had failed to repair. Everything in the universe could end because she hadn't been able to mend his mind.

Then in the moment of her greatest despair, the Seekers launched their next attack on her and she began to scream again.

White hot fury seared through her, she erupted at all those responsible for this nightmare she was trapped in. She dived down in the darkest part of her soul and turned on her tormenters with brutal ferocity. She ripped at their minds, tore at them, using everything she'd learned from fighting the Master and destroying them without thought of the cost to her.

She didn't care anymore, she had seen what they all were capable of and they deserved no mercy. She immolated her innocence, her youth, her hope, and became something that could move with pitiless speed through them and not stop until every mind that had moved against her had fallen silent and still.

She stood up in the center of her cell, with her fists clenched, teeth bared, panting with exertion, and vowed that she would never again be their victim. She'd make them fear her, make them cower away from her, or die trying. She would come after them like a storm over the plain, with power, with fury, and with no mercy.

They could all burn. She would see to it.

* * *

The Master knew that he was going to suffer now. Knew it the instant he saw Rassilon's eyes. Fury and darkness rode in them and he knew there would be anguish and torment for him. He wasn't wrong.

"You failed me," Rassilon informed him and the words were hazy as he twisted in pain on the floor of the council chamber.

"She was much stronger than I'd suspected," he gasped out.

"Beaten by a schoolgirl, _Master_?" he mocked him, spitting out his name like an insult. The Master rode the painful sensations, but realized they were less agonizing than before. Why? He searched inside of him and found the unexpected.

Susan.

Somehow she was holding back as much of the torment as she could. Her stubborn will was pushed up against the agony, fighting against it, lessening it.

"Stop it! Fight your own battles, I don't need your help!" he snarled in his mind, despite the strange wonderment of her support.

"Hurts me too, you idiot!" she snapped back and he gasped aloud in understanding. They were still connected, and deeply enough that she could feel his pain through it. This was rather unexpected. It seemed that he was quite possibly bound to the Doctor's precious granddaughter. He was torn between amusement and disgust, but amusement was winning out.

"A very unusual schoolgirl," he chuckled weakly to Rassilon and then lay limp on the floor, as the pain finally subsided.

"The Visionaries swear she is the Arkytior, but I am unconvinced," Rassilon mused, walking past the Master's prone form to settle into a chair. "She has yet to have any visions of significance."

The Arkytior? Well, that explained much. If she truly was the genetic recipient of that ancient power, it would easily explain how she could fight him so deftly. Yet, she was not a vengeful goddess, or a whispering Seer, she was, oh stars, she was…everything. His body was reacting to the merest thought of her in a manner that he found highly vexing.

He bit his tongue, holding the shared vision, the truth of their connection, all of it, in a secret place inside of him. He knew it must remain a secret. They'd never free her if they knew she was bound to him or that she truly did have visions of note, which meant he'd never have her, and he _had_ to have her. He would own her, possess her, and someday soon.

"Not likely," she scoffed in the back of his mind, even as the connection faded to mere background noise again. He found himself smiling and didn't know why. She obviously hated him, but it would only make his victory over her sweeter in the end.

"If you cannot induce a vision in her through telepathy alone, then it's unlikely we will find someone who can. You're insane, but you _are_ the most skilled telepath we have," Rassilon acknowledged the obvious, that the Master was still the most gifted amongst them all.

He knew that for sheer power Rassilon could crush him like a bug. Despite that, Rassilon lacked finesse, if he had tried to break Susan, there'd have been nothing left of her. The thought of that bothered him a great deal. The girl was his now and he wanted her intact when he finally came to claim her.

He wondered if it was worth getting up off of the floor or not. The likelihood was that he would quickly find another opportunity to annoy the Lord President and he doubted if he'd be able to resist saying something rude. Except, that if he provoked another such dose of pain, Susan would suffer as well. Damn. He couldn't risk that. Her mind was already under constant assault by those dolts. Having to fight off the pain she received from the connection they shared could distract her in a critical moment. She was his to play with, not theirs.

"Would you like me to try again?" he asked the Lord President. Oh yes, he thought, let him try again, and this time he'd let no one stop him, he'd have her in his arms and in his bed. He levered himself up from the floor and stood on somewhat wobbly legs, visions of what he wanted to do to her burning in him.

"No. This path is obviously a dead end. The Visionaries had nearly a year to open her, and failed, another way will have to be found." The Master didn't like the sound of that. She belonged to him now and he didn't want this disgusting creature touching her. "I will send you back to Avalon, the General there was quite impressed with your engineering skills," he was informed.

"I see," he answered, but his discontent was not completely hidden. Rassilon laughed aloud, his mocking disdain ringing through the chamber.

"Did you think I'd let you anywhere near her now? She's from a lineage far too refined for a mad dog like you to mount!" he was informed and his blood boiled. "I got a full report of your behavior in the Tower; you would have raped the girl, if they hadn't pulled you off of her."

The Master recalled it rather differently. Susan had been returning his kiss with equal passion. That instant of lunacy between them had been quite mutual, even as their sudden cold awakening had been. There was no question of rape. She'd wanted him as much as he'd wanted her. He still wanted her, he could hardly keep himself still while the need to get back to her raged in him. Damn it! Bound up in her or not, he had to control himself. This madness wasn't going to help him fight free of Rassilon, or get his revenge on all of those that had wronged him, after all.

He shrugged carelessly, not about to discuss his new obsession with the Lord President. The less he said, the less vigilant the man would be in the future, and opportunities might yet arise.

He would obey his orders and go back to Avalon like a good boy. He'd bide his time. For now.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6 – Finding Balance

Leela was scything through the Dalek's human shock troops with terrifying efficiency and Andred had time to wonder if she'd stayed in training all along and just not mentioned it to him. He shot down one soldier coming at her from behind and she grinned at him.

"You're learning, sweetie!" she complimented him.

"Taught by the best, my love!" he called back and kept watching her back.

There was a wrenching feeling, like they were falling, and suddenly the battlefield had changed. Lizard-like creatures were swarming them and Andred felt a few months younger than he had been.

"Time Line collapse?" Leela asked him, her lack of a time sense making these shifts far harder on her than they were on him.

"Yeah, we lost about two and half months," he answered. He'd give her the precise time later, when they weren't up to their arses in lizards.

"About the Doctor's request... are you going to go?" she asked him during a lull in the fighting.

"Of course!" he replied, somewhat surprised by the question.

"That was the correct answer," she replied and he leaned down and kissed her softly. "But be careful! You haven't the sense of a child sometimes and I worry about you." He gave her a swift hug.

"I'll be as careful as I always am," he chided her and she shook her head in disgust.

"That's what I'm afraid of."

* * *

"You are free to go." Susan looked up at the words and frowned. One of the Guards stood in the doorway, holding it open for her.

"Is this a joke, or perhaps a trap?" she asked. Nearly a year of constant attempts on her mind and now they were just letting her go?

"By order of Lord President Rassilon, you are to be freed," he answered with a "hurry up" gesture at her. She rose from the floor and stepped towards him and he flinched as she passed. His palpable unease made her frown. She'd wanted the Seekers to fear her; she hadn't counted on the Castellan's Guards feeling that way as well.

"My Lady Susan?" She turned at the surprised tone and saw a rather tall blonde man in a military uniform, standing in the hallway. "I am Captain Andred, of the Third Gallifreyan Legion, your Head of Family sent me to see to your requirements," he informed her. He was worn and disheveled looking, just in from the Front, no doubt. He was eyeing the guards like he was seriously considering just shooting them all right there. It made her feel warm and happy inside.

"How kind of her," she answered and smiled. It was the first genuine smile of pleasure she'd worn in a very long time.

"She's being released. We are to escort her to new Quarters in the Citadel, Captain," Susan's guard informed him, rather nervously, indicating the six guards that awaited her in the hallway and Andred frowned, with his blue eyes hard.

"The Lady Professor was expecting her to be sent back to her home," he commented and his eyes were hard and angry. Susan watched the exchange in interest. Apparently, her great grandmother had known that she was to be released, though it seemed that she wasn't really being released at all, only moved to a different cell.

"The Lord President has instructed that Lady Susanatrevalar is to attend the Academy and therefore she will be lodged in the student quarters there," the guard answered, and his eyes were flicking back and forth between Captain Andred and Susan, as though not sure which one was more dangerous.

"Where precisely?" Captain Andred enquired and it was obvious that he was now furious. The guards all took a step backwards from him and Susan suppressed a smile. She was very much starting to like the good Captain.

"She will be in room 17, section 8," the guard answered and Captain Andred's frown grew deeper.

"That room backs onto the Tower does it not?" he asked in a deadly tone and Susan saw what was happening. She was being lulled into a false sense of security. She wasn't going to be freed, they would never free her, they would just keep changing tactics until they broke her.

"I believe so," the guard answered and his eyes were filled with nervous anxiety.

"My Lady, if I may I act as your escort, for the honor of your line?" Andred requested with a formal bow.

"Captain Andred, I would be grateful for your kind escort," she replied with equal formality. He bowed again and extended his arm to her. She curtsied and put her arm through his with a gravity that matched his own.

"Then, since the Lady is now my duty and charge, I shall escort her, and the rest of you are excused," Andred commanded and while the guards looked a bit flustered, they also looked relieved and scattered with alacrity.

"The prospect of your escort is far more appealing, I must say," Susan teased and he looked down at her from his greater height with a frown.

"What the hell have they been doing to you, my Lady?" he snarled, obviously still rather upset and she looked up at him in surprise.

"Trying to turn me into a Visionary," she answered and his low-voiced swearing taught her a few new words she hadn't heard before.

"Soldiering gives one such an extensive vocabulary," she commented with a considering air, just so she could watch him color up and stutter.

"Sorry about that, my Lady," he muttered and she looked up at the earnest blue eyes and smiled.

"You never have to apologize for defending me, Captain Andred," she informed him.

"My Lady, the Doctor is one of my oldest and dearest friends, had I known that you were being held against your will, I would have done something about it!" he snapped, obviously furious, and she sighed out.

"Rassilon and the High Council ordered this, Captain. I doubt that there is much you could have done." His face went white with fury as she spoke and she patted him gently on the arm as they walked down the hallway towards the Arch that led from the Visionary's Tower into the main bulk of the Citadel. "Get me to my new quarters safely and you will have done more for me today than has been done for me in nearly a year by anyone else."

"My Lady, I would escort you safely through hell itself," the Captain vowed and she looked up at him quite earnestly.

"Let us hope that will not be necessary," she answered.

Captain Andred escorted her through the citadel and she tried to ignore the stares. She was still barefoot, still dressed in the white acolytes robes, though her hair now tumbled down her back. It was a walk of shame, she knew, designed by Rassilon to humiliate her.

If only he knew that Susan had worn miniskirts and tank tops on Earth, danced barefoot on Mars, and run through the rains of Venus in little more than a jumpsuit and socks, he'd not have imagined that her clothes could possibly embarrass her. It was chilly though.

The Captain felt her shiver and instantly removed his jacket and settled it across her shoulders. She looked up at him with a grin.

"Your wife is a lucky woman," she told him and he blushed.

"I'm lucky to have her," he insisted and she smiled even more broadly at him.

"You are, actually, Grandfather always says so, you know," she teased and he laughed.

"Then we completely agree," he answered with a gentle smile.

"They aren't actually freeing me, are they?" she asked in a low tone and he shook his head.

"Doesn't seem that way, my Lady," he responded.

"Susan," she insisted and he nodded his eyes gentle on her.

"Susan, we will need to keep in touch, I don't want you going in there alone, without any sort of back-up," he murmured and she was hard pressed not to dissolve into hysterics. She'd been fighting this lonely war for so long, nearly a year, or possibly sixty now, and she'd been alone in it this whole time.

Well, not the last few weeks. The Master was there in her head, his presence never quite absent from her consciousness. She wasn't sure if he constituted 'back-up' though. Probably not, at least not in Andred's book. She forced down the hysteria again, refusing to be broken now by this man's gentle kindness and concern.

"That would be nice," she admitted. "Thank you, Andred."

They reached the rooms assigned to her and she saw that her name was already on the door. She pressed her palm against it, the door scanned her, and swung open.

He stepped in first, and she noted that his hand was on his gun and his eyes were scanning the room. She doubted that Rassilon intended to assassinate her, but she appreciated Andred's care of her.

The room was quite a change from her cell. A small kitchen and dining area were visible through an arch. She was currently standing in the living room area, which was well appointed, if not exactly sumptuous, while next to the arch was a second door that probably let to the bedroom. All in all, it was a distinct improvement on her tiny cell.

"Clear," he told her and she smiled at him. She stepped into the bedroom and opened the wardrobe. Six identical acolyte's robes hung in it and she slammed the door with a growl.

Andred ran in with gun drawn and she waved him off.

"No one's attacking," she ground out. "I'm just being insulted." She opened the closet door and he glared at the robes, putting away his gun, but looking as though he'd much rather be shooting someone with it.

"The code phrase for "put the damn gun down, you idiot, Andred!" is "shore leave," he informed her with a small tight smile.

"Did Leela come up with it?" she asked with a dimpled smile and he shook his head.

"Actually, the Doctor did," he admitted, his expression chagrined, and she burst out laughing. His mood darkened as he looked around the room. "Will you be all right?" he asked and his eyes were filled with worry.

"They usually wait until I am falling asleep to attack me," she told him with a shrug and he growled. "There's nothing to be done about it, Andred," she told him gently. "I just have to fight them, that's all."

"I was told to protect you, Susan," he told her, his face despairing and she laughed, a rather sad, bitter sound. He looked at her with hurt in his eyes and she shook her head.

"No one can protect me, Andred," she sighed out. "I have to fight this war all by myself. It's being fought in my head and while I may be outnumbered, I have a major advantage over them," she told him with a grim smile.

"What advantage?" he asked in confusion.

"I'm the granddaughter of a very clever and very brave man and he taught me everything I know," she answered and Andred nodded, his face clearing.

"Well then, my Lady, I shall leave you to it then," he answered and she nodded.

After he left, she felt a little bit bad about lying to him. After all, not everything she knew had been taught to her by her grandfather. She'd learned a whole host of very dirty tricks from the Master, after all. But, she could hardly tell Andred that, now could she?

* * *

The Doctor lay down and wrapped an arm around Romana, being careful not to wake her. They'd been friends for a long time and he found her company to be delightful in every way, but as time passed, he was finding himself yearning for something a bit more lasting and deep. He loved Romana, always, but as his best friend. He knew that she felt the same way about him as well. He hoped that someday she'd find someone who'd appreciate her the way she deserved.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but found himself restless and a touch irritable. He slipped back out of the bed and headed to the sitting area of their quarters. He pulled a tablet towards him and began muttering as he got back to work on an evacuation plan for Rushmore.

There was always so much to do, and even for a Time Lord, never enough time to do it in.

There was a message waiting for him, with his mother's code next to it, and he opened it with mingled feelings of hope and despair.

"Susan has been released from the Tower, she is in room 17, section 8 of the student quarters," she told him and his initial elation was followed by a return of his despair. The Tower was keeping her close. "She messaged me from her new rooms, she seems in good spirits, though rather thin just now," the message continued and he took a deep breath. They hadn't broken her, she was still sane. "I hope that you will be able to come home soon and visit her, she misses you a great deal." The last part of the message nearly made him cry. She missed him. She wanted to see him. She didn't blame him; she didn't hate him for his failure to keep her safe.

He laid his head on his arms and finally let relief wash through him. The tears fell hot onto the desk, but he didn't much care just then.

* * *

The situation was surreal, Susan thought and not for the first time. She stood before the regents of the Prydonian Academy and considered pinching herself, just to make sure she wasn't dreaming. From prisoner to pending Academy student was a rather odd shift.

"Lady Susanatrevalar, we have received the results of your aptitude testing," an elderly regent, with white hair and a face that seemed to have frozen into a look of unpleasant surprise, informed her. "Surprisingly, you have a high level of education and an aptitude for a very large number of subjects." The man looked at the testing results with a sour expression, as though he'd have preferred that she be some ignorant Shobogan and Susan bristled.

"I _was_ raised by the Doctor, Lord Regent," she reminded him. "He never neglected my studies, no matter where or when we were."

"No doubt, my Lady, but really, there are no decent centers of learning elsewhere in the universe, it is a miracle that you received any education at all!" a second Regent protested.

Susan thought of the Martian colony school where she had learned to read and write and of the Nova Venusian University where she had studied history, philosophy, and music. She considered the Library of Alexandria, where she'd spent many happy hours reading and absorbing the wisdom of ancient Earth, and of course, she pondered the Library itself, where every book ever written, and some that hadn't been written yet, were housed, and where her Grandfather and she had once spent six months working their way through the letter "C", just for the fun of it. Obviously the scholars of Gallifrey had a fairly limited view of the universe if they imagined that they were the only "real" place of learning in it. Prudently, she merely looked at them with an attentive smile.

"As you say," she answered cautiously. Even though a week had passed since she'd been freed, she was still tense and nervous, waiting for an attack that had not yet come. She knew that the Tower wasn't done with her and she couldn't be certain that all of this wasn't some elaborate trap designed to lull her to a false sense of security before attacking again.

"As a member of your line, you will no doubt wish to study engineering of some type or another," a third, somewhat more kindly regent, with bright eyes and a birdlike quality, murmured.

"Actually, no, I wish to study Medicine, with an aim towards studying Gene Expression and Xenobiology, I will also want to minor in Xenobotany and Pharmacology," she informed the Regents, who all stared at her in stunned silence.

"You family line has been studying engineering for over a million years!" the first regent gasped and Susan smiled sweetly at him and nodded.

"Then we are certainly overdue for a change," she assured them. Three sets of eyes studied her and she stared back, friendly, kind, and utterly unmovable.

"Very well," the little bird-like regent agreed, though he looked somewhat dubious. "If that is your choice, we shall enter you into the Medical Studies Program." He entered her information, as she stood patiently waiting, and then they dismissed her.

Head high and triumph singing in her veins, Susanatrevalar, newly minted Medical Student, marched out of the Regent's Chamber, leaving behind three rather flummoxed old men.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7 – Can't Go Home Again

The Doctor stood on the bridge of the Battleship and worked his magic with her shields and engine power. All around him the Naval officers and ratings were flying the huge ship into battle, the controlled chaos of combat making a din that he was hard pressed to ignore.

"Dalek units coming up on one three seven point six, sir!" shouted someone to the Captain behind him, but the Doctor was under a console, too busy rewiring the temporal stabilizers to be able to pay too much attention. If he couldn't get the system to work, they'd be dead no matter what, so it hardly mattered to him where the Daleks were coming from.

"Probability cannons to bear on incoming Dalek ships!" Captain Gurgaon was shouting and the Doctor could feel the ripples in the Time Stream as the cannons began to fire. "Doctor, now would be good!"

"Almost there, Captain!" he called back and sonic'd the last component in place. "Done!" he shouted and pulled himself out from under the console.

"Temporal Stabilizers on line, Captain," one of the ratings confirmed and the Doctor grinned. A job well done.

A shock ran through the ship, knocking him down and he found the deck tilting in an alarming manner. Scrabbling for a handhold, he barely kept himself from becoming a Doctor shaped stain on the wall. The rest of the crew were all in slings in front of their boards and he deeply wished he was in one too.

"Damage?" the Captain called out and the stations began reporting back to him.

"Temporal Stabilizers off line, sir!" the rating called out. The Doctor began to curse as he went back under that damn console to fix it again. The Daleks seemed to love to break things just after he'd finished repairing them. It was a conspiracy.

* * *

Leela, dark hair hanging lank around her face, looked up wearily from her mug of coffee as Andred threw the data pad down on the table with a frown.

"Bad news?" she asked, her voice rough from the day's shouting of orders.

"Is there any other kind?" he asked with a bitter twist to his lips.

"No," she sighed out. "Not lately, anyway." She sipped the coffee and looked up at him with blue eyes that looked bruised in her face. So tired, he thought to himself, they were all of them so tired, but she was human. She lacked the stamina of a Time Lord, yet insisted on pushing as hard as the rest of them did. It scared him to see how thin and worn she was getting. He rose and went to sit beside her on the camp couch, pulling her into his arms, and burying his face in her hair.

"Oh my love," he whispered to her. "What I wouldn't do to get you out of this mess."

"You'd leave your people to fight without you?" she asked in surprise and he looked at her, seeing the bravery, the loyalty, the unstoppable force that made his wife so incredible and knowing that the High Council valued her life far below his own. He knew quite well that she was worth a thousand of him, but his people would never see that.

"The High Council left the Doctor's granddaughter to the Tower's 'mercies' for nearly a year, Leela," he snarled. "If you could have seen her! She was thin as a rail, a half-starved feral creature who stared around at everything like she was waiting to be hit. I formally protested and was told to mind my own business in no uncertain terms. It was all very politely worded, of course, with all the right sentiments being expressed; "So unfortunate that it was necessary", "the dreadful requirements of the war effort", and all that garbage. As though harming a member of our own race, a descendent of… well, that shouldn't matter, but a girl that young, to be so treated! It was wrong, Leela."

"You didn't answer the question, love," she prodded him.

"I am not certain just now, that my people are worth defending. I will fight the Daleks, because the rest of the universe needs to be kept safe from them, but I cannot say that I much care right now if the Time Lords fall or survive." It was a bare statement of fact, a glacial recitation of his disillusionment and anger and Leela burrowed into his arms, holding him very tight.

* * *

The Master stared at the read-outs and began to curse. The controls that Rassilon had woven into his neurological system were not responding to the Nanites he'd programmed to destroy them. This was a more complex problem than he had originally assumed.

He'd just have to get really tricky about it.

He was going to be free of the High Council, free of Rassilon, and once he was, he'd find a way to kill them all and dance on their smoking corpses. Then, oh then, he'd go and find that girl and there would be no force in all of time or space that could prevent him taking her away from them.

* * *

"My Lady Susanatrevalar, good day!" The lanky young man addressing her, with his horse's face and watery eyes, was a member of a powerful line, so Susan smiled politely at him, despite her hurry, while trying to indicate that she had places to be. However, Findarian wasn't very bright and couldn't seem to take a hint.

"My Lord Findarian," she replied with a cool nod and kept walking. She'd finished her last class for the day, but she had at least three papers to write before the end of the week and one of them was for Professor Chronotis. She'd taken his history class to round out her requirements, but also because the Professor was a friend of her grandfather's. She wasn't sure she was learning much history, the man could barely remember what century they were presently in and certainly couldn't remember what he was supposed to be teaching them, but she _was_ drinking a lot of tea.

"My Lady, are you going to be attending the cotillion ball at Lady Harrimanian's?" Findarian continued and Susan blinked at him in confusion.

"Why ever would I want to do that?" she asked, beyond puzzled.

"Why to dance, to see, and to be seen, of course!" he replied, equally puzzled by her apparent aversion.

"We're in the midst of a war," she reminded him with a sudden savage fury rising in her hearts. "I hardly have time to waste on frivolous entertainments, when I am trying to master the skills that might one day save our soldier's lives." She turned on her heel and stomped away from the stunned young man, so angry she could barely speak. A cotillion? In the middle of a war? When thousands died daily? Unbelievable!

Behind her, unnoticed in the crowd, another young man, who looked rather like a stick with glasses stuck on one end, watched her go with a smile of purest adoration. Terelinian, whose family wasn't quite as exalted as Findarian's was, but who had three siblings in the Navy, had just fallen in love.

Susan tossed her study pad on the desk and stepped into the shower with a sigh. She loved her studies, but so far her classmates were far less appealing.

She was sick of young men sniffing around her, hoping to use a relationship with her to launch them to greater social heights. None of them attracted her anyway, so she didn't care. A couple of the girls had even tried with her, when they'd seen her lack of interest in the boys, but she'd also put them off as politely as she knew how.

She had a one track mind as far as physical desire went. She only wanted _him_, which was frustrating as hell and stupid to boot.

The Master had been sent away to the Front. This news, delivered to her by a gloating secretarial type was received by her with very mixed emotions. On the one hand, she was relieved not to have to deal with a psychopath stalking her through the Capital. On the other hand, he'd been dispatched off to war and combat. It had been obvious by the hints the oily secretary was dropping that he hoped that the Master would be killed in action.

She had not been amused. Her glare had been enough to make the scabrous wretch scuttle away, confused by her reaction. He wasn't alone in that confusion.

She just didn't know how to feel about the situation. Yes, she was filled with longing for him, she got flustered just thinking about that fevered kiss, but she didn't even like him. Her body might respond to the mere thought of him, in a manner that was both embarrassing and alarming, but her mind wasn't so easily led.

He was a psychopath and probably a sociopath as well. He'd killed innocent people, done horrific things, and yet… she'd seen what they'd wrapped around his brain. She knew that it wasn't his fault. He was a puppet, a toy that Rassilon had made and then casually released. Even so, he was definitely crazy, that much was obvious. Even if she were ever to be in a room with him again, she was knew she couldn't act on her desires. He was dangerous and she was afraid of what his madness might drive him to, even as she pitied him.

Strangely, she didn't feel afraid of _him_ exactly. She was afraid of what he might do, of what he couldn't stop himself from doing. It was like he was two people, the gorgeous brilliant heart of him and the black webbed monster. She was aching inside for that true self, hidden behind the sneering villain, but she was nervous about the villain himself.

She stepped out of the shower and wandered into her bedroom, pulling clothes from the wardrobe as she went. The liquids used in the shower dried instantly, which was convenient, but always left her hair in a tangle. She dressed, combed out it out and stared at herself in the mirror.

She was still getting used to the lighter hair color. She'd had a mop of black curls for two hundred and forty years; the long wavy dark brown hair had only been there for a few weeks. Wet, it had looked nearly black, but as she turned in the light she could see that it was a deep chocolate color. It was okay, but she didn't much like her face. It was just a bit too sweet looking. High round cheekbones, huge emerald green eyes, brows that arched in permanent surprise, a pointed chin, she looked like the heroine of some silly romance drama. It attracted too much attention. She wanted to go unnoticed, to just slip quietly through Gallifreyan society, but between her family's rank and her face, that didn't seem likely.

A muted beeping interrupted her thoughts and told her that there was a message in her in-box. She read the circular letters with joy; her grandfather was coming home for a week's leave! She'd see him soon! It had been so long and she'd missed him so much.

She realized suddenly that she couldn't tell him what had happened to her. The Visions concerned too much of his future and much of it was grim and unpleasant. How could she tell him that he would be forced to destroy Gallifrey? How could she tell him that he would spend long centuries alone, believing himself to be the last of his kind? How could she tell him he very well might end up being the last Time Lord, if she could find no way to save her loved ones from the coming destruction.

Most importantly, how could she reveal any of this knowledge to a man that was often called before the High Council? She couldn't stop any of this if Rassilon were to have knowledge of the future. She sank her head into her hands, mind whirling with too many questions and very few answers. There had never been anything she hadn't felt she couldn't tell her grandfather and she hated the idea of holding things back from him.

Forcing her mind off of her troubles, she pulled her study pad towards her and plugged into the archives to research her next paper. She had to learn everything she could as fast as she could. There was less time than anyone imagined.

* * *

The Doctor stepped into the reception area and looked around. A reed slender girl with brown hair and startlingly green eyes waved to him and he recognized it as Susan. She ran into his arms and he hugged her hard, feeling the changes in her with a terrible sense that he'd failed her again somehow.

"You've regenerated," he accused, mouth turning down in worry. "What happened, are you alright?" She frowned and dropped her eyes, before leaning close into his embrace.

"I'm alright, now, Grandfather. Oh please, let's not talk about anything upsetting just now. I have missed you so much!" He could sense tears in her voice and nodded, still not able to let her go, needing the feel of her against him to reassure himself that she was alive and sane.

"What are you studying?" he asked, forcing himself to talk to her lightly, avoiding the dark sorrow in her eyes. She smiled at him, gratitude in those feline green eyes that seemed to see into every nook and cranny of his hearts.

"Xeno-biology and Genetics," she enthused and dragged him off to the trans-mat station. They were going home, he guessed, to his mother's home on the mountain. They were going to spend a week pretending to be a normal family, having a nice normal visit, without the shadow of war, suffering, and death hanging over them. No doubt the Council would have the whole place under surveillance, but they could ignore all of that as well.

He was going to go along with it, he knew, and he would play his role to the hilt. Because, despite her bright smiles and cheerful chatter, he could see the cracks in Susan's hearts. He could see how close she stood to the cliff and he'd be damned if he was going to be the one to drive her over that precipice.

* * *

Susan sat down by her great-grandmother's desk and watched her work, mulling over how to give this woman her news. The Lady Professor was a legend, one of the three most brilliant minds in the history of Gallifrey and Susan was a trifle intimidated.

The Professor's office was one of the few memories she'd had of Gallifrey growing up, but she was never sure if it was simply having been here when she was little, or if it was just the many stories she'd heard from grandfather over the years. The glass domed ceiling above, the huge spread of windows that opened out to give a spectacular view of the mountain falling away from them, the warm, worn, comfortable furniture and the thick carpeting that felt like fuzzy moss beneath her fingers.

She recalled the carpet with particularly fond memories, she'd learned to crawl and to walk on this rug, and she'd played with dolls here, and lay on it, staring up through the dome for long hours, watching the clouds drifting by. It was a haven of peace and she found herself relaxing under the room's benign influence.

"I am reliably informed that you are doing well in your classes, are you enjoying them?" the great lady asked her and the sparkle in her eyes was so very much like Grandfather's that Susan smiled broadly in return. Susan hoped that one day she could have ginger hair, like her Great Gran's, it caught the light with copper and silver glints that Susan found fascinating.

"I love it! I had so much trouble finding complete medical textbooks on Earth! I spent ages sifting through bookstore basements trying to find what I needed. But here! All the books I could ever want to read and right at my fingertips, its wonderful!" she laughed and her great grandmother smiled back at her. The sharp gray-green eyes with their outer ring of blue were watching her and Susan felt as though nothing in her heart or mind was secret from the loving observation of the ancient professor.

"Yet, I see a shadow in your heart, Susan. Is it something you think you could share with me?" she asked with an arched brow and a look of calm patience.

"I think so, My Lady Professor…" she began, but was quickly interrupted.

"Great Gran will be more than sufficient, child," the other woman laughingly corrected.

"Very well, Great Gran, I would like to tell you, if fact I would really like to have your advice," Susan tugged at the brown wavy hair that tumbled over her shoulder and looked up at her ancestress with concern. "But it's not something I want to share with the universe, is it okay to tell you here?"

"This room is secured, child, not to worry, I have had it sealed and it's constantly being swept for bugs," she answered and Susan blew out her breath in relief.

"I never let the Tower find out, but I do have visions, Great Gran," she admitted and the Lady Professor looked sadly at her, sympathy and compassion in her ancient eyes.

"I suspected as much, my poor darling. I'm glad that you didn't let them find out, things would have been far worse if you had."

"I figured that," Susan answered with a wry smile. "Anything they wanted that badly wasn't something I felt comfortable giving them. The thing is, I have seen the Final Vision." Her Great Grandmother drew her breath in sharply and nodded.

"I'm listening."

"I saw the future and it's rather bleak. We're going to lose this war, but Rassilon is going to try to save Gallifrey by destroying the entire universe. Grandfather is going to stop him, but Gallifrey will be destroyed in the process. All the Time Lords will be killed, if we can't find a way to escape the coming holocaust, and if some of us don't escape, there will come a crisis later on where Grandfather will need our help and we won't be there to give it. If that happens, the universe will be erased from existence and never have been at all." She edited her vision a bit, not ready to tell her about herself and the Master tangled up in each other, reaching out across the Void to send a warning. She was far too uncomfortable with the thought.

"Well, that _is_ a pretty bleak vision," she answered, frowning, but not looking particularly upset. "I suppose we will have to find some way to escape then, won't we? We'll probably have to do something rather clever." Looking up at the woman in front of her, Susan felt a great ray of hope bursting into her mind for the first time since she'd seen why Rassilon had done what he'd done to the Master.

"I also accidently ended up connected telepathically to the Master. I think that we might be bonded," she added, not about to go into the details with her. The Professor stared at her with a considering air, studying her for long moments before she spoke and Susan wondered just how much the ancient woman saw with those eyes.

"Now, that I can't help you with, Susan," Great Gran answered slowly and Susan nodded, she'd figured that as well. "But I _am_ sorry. I imagine that it will be difficult for you."

Difficult? Yeah, that was probably the understatement of the last few centuries, Susan thought with a bitter sigh. She was desperately attracted to a psychopath, connected to his brain, but not really sure that she didn't hate him, just a little, for making her feel like this about him.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8 – Plans to Make

Avalon was as well defended as technology and genius could make it, so the Master was moved on to the Cruciform. He'd aged ten years, then lost nine, gained another twenty, then lost them as well, all in a few weeks' actual time.

He wouldn't have minded about the constantly shifting time lines, but he kept losing all the progress he was making on the defense grids and having to start over, or suddenly discovering that he'd gained six weeks of work and having to find the next set of plans and change what he was doing. He was discovering that he preferred his time to be a little more linear.

His time sense was the only thing that kept him functional and for some reason it seemed to count up only from one place.

Six weeks, two days, seventeen hours, and forty-three minutes since he'd last touched her. If he hadn't been mad already, it would have driven him crazy.

* * *

The Academy room had carpeted floors and there was a window, these were her two favorite features, after a kitchen and a bed to sleep in. She walked to the window and looked out, staring hungrily at the stars. It was thousands of feet from the ground and the window was fastened tight, of course.

No escape. They'd told her she was free, but she'd known that they had no intention of releasing her completely. She was far too valuable an asset and far too useful a hostage. Every morning a guard showed up to 'escort' her to class and then another one showed up at the end of her classes to 'escort' her back to her rooms. They made certain she knew that she was leashed and guarded. For a girl that had once had all of space and time to run through, it was stifling.

"I miss the TARDIS," she murmured to the stars, looking up at them with sorrow. She'd lost them now, maybe forever.

The Tower had given her a few weeks respite, but then the attacks had begun again. They waited for moments when she was relaxed, calm, and vulnerable. She had countered that by never completely relaxing. It was exhausting and she was so very tired, but she kept her mind occupied with school, with studying, trying to fill her mind up with so much that there was no room for anything else.

She had fallen in love with the Academy; she adored learning all the things that had been denied her, voraciously sucking up knowledge, her scholar's heart, so long denied, was now set on gathering each crumb of information it could gobble up.

But, she was also discovering that Gallifrey wasn't her home. After all the centuries of wandering and not belonging, she'd thought that coming here would be the answer, but she'd been wrong. She felt just as much of an outsider here as she had on Earth. She was born of Gallifrey, but had been raised on many planets. She was a cosmopolitan traveler of the universe, while the people here never left and couldn't imagine that there was anything else to see out there.

She didn't know where she belonged. She was so very alone, so very lonely, and not really a part of anything anymore. She crossed to her bed, tired and frustrated, and stripped off her student's robes, letting them fall to the ground, too depressed to care. She tumbled into the bed, falling asleep as soon as she touched the pillow.

* * *

"Susan," the whispered voice roused her and she woke to find dark eyes regarding her from inches away. She should have been startled, but she wasn't. She realized that she'd been waiting for him all this time in some part of her mind. Her lips parted as want surged through her and his answering smile was bitter and hard.

"How did you manage to get in?" she asked.

"Those idiots could never design a security system that _I_ can't subvert," he sneered and then he dropped his mouth down to hers. His kiss was rough and hard, there was no gentleness in it, just a fierce primal need, but it ignited something in her belly and she wrapped her arms around him and returned it with enthusiasm. Need was rousing in her, need and a fierce wanting that she hadn't felt in a very long time.

Part of her mind was demanding that she scream, that she push him away, something, anything, but it was a very small voice and she was in no mood to listen. She'd been alone and lonely for so long and he was all that she'd wanted for weeks now. She ran her hands through his hair and kissed him back, answering his passion with her own, surrendering without thought, wanting everything he was offering. Wanting nothing so much as to lose herself in the sensations he was evoking in her.

He was pulling away her clothes, his eyes were dark flames and his hair was silken under her fingers. She was tugging at his clothes, unbuttoning his shirt, and he pulled her top off and threw it to one side.

He skinned out of his trousers and slid his hands along her thighs, removing every barrier between them both physical and mental. She was opening herself to him and he was entering her without either of their conscious thought, just the rising need in them both, and the demand that their mutual emptiness be filled.

She was drowning in him, falling into his mind, and she didn't care what came later as long as she could have this now.

* * *

He had made it back to her and the sight of her underneath him, her hair a chocolate waterfall across the pillow, her eyes gone dark and hazy with passion, was more than enough to turn his blood to fire. The feel of her, the way she took everything he gave her and returned it to him with equal ferocity, was more than he'd ever dared hope for.

She was fire and velvet, fierce, hot, a craving he would never satisfy, and he was being pulled into her, minds entwining like their bodies. She was his match, following his lead one moment, pushing him harder the next, holding nothing back and he was getting so close to something wondrous, something immense. He had never known such absolute surrender, such welcome, as he felt in her. He was giving everything to her without stint, his own surrender just as complete as hers, and it seemed so right.

He was destroyed, supernovas going off behind his eyes, and then collapsed against her, clutching her to him, like his life depended on the contact between them.

Holding her, feeling her pulse slowing, he was relaxed, hazy, easing into an unexpected peacefulness, as though something in him had been stilled and sated. He buried his face in her shoulder and just breathed for long moments.

* * *

In the aftermath, she lay breathless, checking the work she'd done in his mind. She'd pulled more of the black cords loose, but the time they'd spent apart had knotted and tangled some of her earlier efforts.

"I am your Master and I claim you as my own," he informed her, with eyes gone hot and greedy, and she laughed.

"No one owns me. I may choose to be with you, but you will never own me, any more than those bastards in the Tower ever will," she retorted and anger kindled in his eyes. He grabbed her hair and pulled it, forcing her head back. Her pain was his pain, he was feeling it all with her and she knew it. He could no more truly harm her, than she could harm him. She knew herself to be safe and so pushed a little to get him back to where she needed to be.

"What? Are you going to beat me, now? Don't we have better things to do?" she asked him, her voice filled with promises, and he growled with a mixture of frustration and need boiling in him.

"We do, but I reserve the right to beat you later," he muttered, an idle threat and they both knew it. She was just as fierce, as aggressive, and as strong as he was, and it was more exciting than he'd ever dreamed it could be.

* * *

Afterwards, he turned his head and studied her, black eyes looking into green. His face was still, the anger dampened, if not conquered. Susan studied him, seeing a vulnerability that would have surprised her before she had seen so much of his mind.

"I thought I could have you a few times and get you out of my system. I thought I could be done with you," he told her with a sigh.

"And?" she asked, genuinely curious as to how he saw this connection between them playing out.

"I don't think I'll ever be done," he admitted and she caressed his face with her fingertips, as his eyes devoured her. "I don't think I'll ever want to stop."

"Then don't," she challenged him and he grinned at her, avaricious and fierce, but it made her hearts race with desire. She was lost again, already wanting more, drowning in the warmth and passion riding between them and all she wanted was more.

She knew that she'd never want to stop either; she would never be done with this man.

* * *

"Time for class, my Lady."

Susan's eyes flew open and she looked around, disoriented. She was alone in the bed and her escort was waiting in the doorway.

A dream. It had been a dream. The most vividly real, incredibly erotic, amazing dream she'd ever had, but a dream nonetheless. He hadn't come to her room, it hadn't been real. She was wet, desperate for him, and deeply disappointed that it was over.

She dragged herself from the bed, suddenly ashamed of herself. He was gone and probably glad to be rid of her. What was wrong with her that she was having intense fantasies about a man who'd tried to kill her grandfather on many occasions? He was insane, dangerous, and she could not want to have violent, mind-blowing sex with him!

So, why was she feeling as though she'd lost something precious? She went into the bathroom and dressed for the day, but she felt upset, confused, and utterly disgusted with herself.

* * *

The Master woke with a start and stared around his bedroom in bewilderment.

"Susan?" he called out, only to find that he was alone. A dream, he realized with bitter anger. He'd not found a way to her, hadn't claimed her, made her his, it was just imaginings. His fingers shredded the blankets as frustration and discontent raged in him. He wanted her and until he had her, he wouldn't be able to still his restless need.

He flung himself from the bed and stormed to the Console room of his TARDIS. He'd kill a few million Daleks, surely that would make him feel better.

* * *

Susan looked up as the door chimed and Randarian and Mallafressia entered with a handsome human trailing behind them.

Rand was a tall, rangy brown haired man, with a lopsided smile and warm brown eyes. He wasn't the most handsome man about, but his sweetness and brilliance were more than enough to make Susan adore him. His wife was a icy blond with sharp blue eyes. She was gorgeous, but reserved and quiet. The obvious depth of her love for Rand was all that saved her from being someone who made Susan rather uncomfortable.

"Rand!" she exclaimed in joy and bounced over to her favorite of Grandmother's students.

"Hey Susan, I want you to meet Jack here, he's travelling with Malla and I," he introduced and she smiled at the tall, dark-haired man.

"Well hello," he purred at her, face lighting up and his pheromones on overdrive. She grinned.

"51st century Earth Empire?" she guessed and he looked at her in surprise.

"How did you know?" he asked.

"It's the designer label pheromones, by the 52nd century they were already outlawed," she told him with a wink and he burst out laughing. He leaned over her hand and gave her a cheeky grin.

"Are they working?" he asked hopefully and she shook her head, still smiling.

"Sorry, superior Time Lord biology and all that," she teased.

"Really?" Malla asked with a raised eyebrow. "Jack's been working his way through half the Academy student body and even some of the teachers," she grumbled, rolling her eyes. Susan could see the amusement beneath her apparent disapproval, but Malla was a lot less expressive than her husband and Susan rarely felt as comfortable around her as she did with Rand.

"These Time Lords know how to party, I have to say," Jack confirmed and Susan giggled.

"I bet they've never seen anything like you before, Jack," she confirmed and he extended an arm to her.

"We were off to get food, you should come along and let me try to change your mind, beautiful," he suggested and she slipped her arm through his with a somewhat sad smile. It would have been nice to fall into something silly and impermanent with Jack, but she was standing right next to him and could feel nothing. He was charming, handsome, sexy, and very desirable, she could see that on an intellectual level, but her body was cold and unresponsive.

Why did mere dreams of the Master drive her to desperation, but someone like Jack left her unmoved? It wasn't fair.

"I will happily eat with you, but I have a class in an hour, so that's all it's going to be," she told him with a shrug.

"Don't take it personally, Jack," Rand assured the other man. "Susan's not interested in anything but studying."

"What are you studying?" Jack asked in sudden interest.

"To be a doctor," she told him. "There are so many people all across the universe that I could do so much good for, if I only had the knowledge and skills. I could save so many lives," she told him, her voice fervent with her desire and he smiled at her sadly.

"You go do that, Suzie-girl," he answered her with a gentleness that surprised her. She could see past sorrows and pain in his eyes and she leaned against him soothingly. "Don't let anyone tease you about it either."

She went and had lunch with the three of them. For an hour and a half, Jack's jokes, Malla's dry commentary, and Rand's enthusiasm helped to wash away all of her misery and doubt.

"Thank you, I needed that," she told them as they parted. Jack leaned down and dropped a kiss on her forehead.

"You're a gem, Suzie-girl, whoever he is, I envy him," he whispered and Susan looked at the Time Agent in shock.

"There's no one," she assured him and he gave her a lop-sided smile.

"Yeah, of course. I just hope he's worth it," Jack said as they all waved good-by and they left, headed back out to the War.

Susan really hoped so too.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9 – Family Gathering

The Doctor slid a hand along Romana's thigh and she chuckled and twined fingers around the back of his neck. He rested his head on her chest, listening to her hearts beat, grateful that she was alive.

The room was hers, they hadn't had the patience to make it all the way back to his in time, he thought with a smug grin. However, that meant that it was a little smaller, the bed slightly narrower. Not that he cared; they didn't need a lot of space for the not sleeping that they did in it. Still the steel gray walls were not particularly inspiring, nor were the military issued chairs and desk. He wanted something to take his mind off of his troubles and for once, Romana wasn't enough to distract him.

The visit home kept replaying itself in his mind. Susan had smiled and laughed, but underneath he could sense that there was something wrong. The only thing he had been able to do for her, was to give her back her wedding ring. Slipping away to retrieve it had been risky, but worth it for the look of gratitude in her eyes.

"She used to tell me everything," he sighed out, feeling melancholy.

"She's not a child anymore. She was a wife and a mother. She's a grown woman now, Doctor. All women have their secrets." It was a teasing statement designed to soothe, but he wasn't soothed.

"That's a different kind of secret," he protested. This wasn't something he could take lightly; Susan had always been the person closest to him, his best friend, as well as his granddaughter. He closed his eyes and felt the old familiar guilt and pain. He was hard on best friends. He should stop calling people that. The Master had been his best friend once as well.

"Do you trust her?" Romana asked and he was surprised by the question. Her blonde hair was spread across the pillow, loops of gold that glinted like sunshine in the room's artificial lighting. Her face was grave and she was watching him with a frown.

"Of course!" he assured her.

"Then have a little faith in her, if she's keeping secrets, she must have a very good reason for it. If she could tell you, no doubt she would," Romana pointed out, brown eyes stern on his face. He ran a finger along her lip, smoothing the incipient pout and then kissing her lightly.

"I know that, of course I do, but it doesn't make it any easier," he answered, feeling unsatisfied with the way things stood.

"Nothing is very easy these days," she acknowledged and he sighed out his agreement.

He stroked her cheek, tweaked her nose, just to see her smiling again up at him, and then took his sorrow and regrets out on her. She didn't seem to mind, after all, she had so many of her own to share.

* * *

Susan stood with the other graduates and smiled at her grandfather, holding the golden medal above her head in triumph. He grinned back and waved at her from the audience, making his nearest neighbors roll their eyes at his antics.

Great Grandmother sat beside him and on her other side sat Susan's parents. She ignored them completely, pretending she didn't see them. She had noticed them come in and how her father nodded coldly at his own father. Grandfather had had a moment's agony written across his features, but it had swiftly vanished.

Most of the time, Susan simply pretended that she had no parents, it was easier that way. Today was not going to be one of those days.

"Ten years to get four doctorates, Susanatrevalar, it's most impressive," her mother was saying as Susan tried not to squirm beside her.

Her father had a hand clamped on her elbow and together they were propelling her about the room, introducing her to those he felt it was proper for her to talk to. Terelinian, one of the few friends she'd made at the Academy, was steered past, despite Susan's attempts to head in his direction. She shot him an apologetic glance and he smiled sadly at her, understanding all too well how the game was played here.

"Oh Lady Gaistinariatta," her mother cooed to a withered old crone whose elaborate hairdo and bejeweled garments were far better suited to a much younger woman. "This is our daughter Susanatrevalar."

"The one that married an ape?" her ladyship asked with a viperish glare and Susan bristled, while her parents went pale.

"Didn't your last husband leave you for an Opera Singer?" Susan asked with a sweet smile and furious eyes. Her ladyship harrumphed loudly and waddled off in a huff.

"Susanatrevalar!" he mother scolded.

"She called my husband an ape!" Susan protested.

"Well, he was one, so it was quite accurate," her father informed her with a glower and she stepped firmly on his toes, causing him to release her arm. She spun on her heel and marched away from him, heading straight towards people she actually liked.

Her grandfather watched her approach with twinkling eyes.

"I hope you didn't cripple your father permanently," he commented mildly, as Terelinian handed her a glass of some rather fruity wine.

"I am a doctor, Grandfather," she informed him tartly. "I know which bones are important and I was quite careful." She'd made sure not to cripple him, but she hadn't taken much more care than that. "Wasn't I, Terry?" she asked Terelinian, with a wink.

"Well, if your intent was not to cripple, but only to break two toes, then you did it perfectly, Susan," Terry answered with a tiny smile. "I take it from that scene, and from the fact that you've never mentioned them before, that you don't get along with your parents?" he asked her and she shrugged.

"They were quite content to let the Tower take me. Anyone who'd turn their child over to become a drooling idiot isn't someone I'll ever get along with," she grumbled and he nodded his understanding.

"Speaking of the devil, here comes my brother," Grandfather muttered and Susan braced herself. Her Great Uncle approached with all the dignity of the Queen, Susan thought with a snicker. He was a pompous old windbag, a Professor of Antiquities and Temporal Engineering, though he used his knowledge of time travel more to gather antiques than for any more practical purpose. He didn't really care about anything less than ten thousand years old, and could care less about people, unless they were mummies.

"Ah, I see you overcame your natural reluctance to show your face in public in order to demonstrate to all of society your complete lack of breeding and manners, how delightful for you." Great Uncle rolled the syllables out like each one was a precious jewel of wit and learning. Susan clenched her teeth on something rude.

"Hello, my beloved elder brother, isn't it wonderful having the family together! It's so pleasant, so charming, so filled with witty banter and light-hearted remarks! It reminds me so much of why I left this planet in the first place," her grandfather retorted, his smile fixed and rather corpse-like.

"Children! Behave!" Great Gran scolded as she appeared behind them both. "Brangle in private, but in public please show some restraint!" Despite the fact that both her sons were well into their eighth century, they fell silent and looked embarrassed by the reprimand. Susan curtsied to her formidable ancestress and tried hard to suppress an impish grin.

"Sorry, Mother," Grandfather murmured.

"Apologies, dear Mater," Great Uncle echoed and they both stood awkwardly for a moment, before turning and heading off in opposite directions.

"Lady Professor," Terry addressed her with a low bow. "Should you ever choose to join the military, you could probably rout the enemy single handed." Great Gran chuckled and eyed him with amusement.

"I see you have a future in politics, Lord Terelinian," she retorted.

"May the Gods prevent!" he prayed fervently. "I mean to have a useful life, My Lady!" he assured her.

* * *

Great Gran was dancing with Grandfather; both moving through a stately figure dance and Susan checked to make sure that no one was watching, before she slipped away from the party.

The flowing scholar's robes swished behind her as she escaped from the persistent requests to dance from various young people. She had last danced in David's arms, so many years ago, and the memory was bittersweet, bringing tears that she had no desire to explain. Her usual guard showed up as she left the gathering, following her silently back to her rooms, and she ignored him. It was annoying, but she hadn't the strength left to care anymore.

The high backed collar and robes were heavy and rather annoying. Once she reached her room, she stripped off the ornate ceremonial garb with relief.

"Any messages?" she asked the concierge computer as she changed.

"No messages," came the mechanical reply.

So many years and still no sign that he even recalled her. She was happy about that, of course. Really, she was. She wasn't upset at all that a psychotic mass murderer wasn't returning her calls, because that would just be stupid. Ten years since that kiss, ten long empty years that seemed to stretch so long.

She dropped the golden medal that signified her achievements onto her desk. Graduated with top honors, accepted into an apprenticeship with the top Genetic Engineer on Gallifrey, she had silenced her critics, made fools of everyone who said that a girl raised with lesser life forms was crippled, less than, disadvantaged in every way. She had won respect from her teachers, and would win respect from her colleagues as well.

Even now, her thesis on "Toxicogenomics in predictive toxicology in drug development, as it relates to RNA synthesis in the Archon energy receptors" was causing a flurry of interest amongst the medical research community. Though honestly, she was surprised that no one had thought of it before, it was all so obvious. She suspected that her time on other worlds, seeing how other races approached similar issues, made her mind more open to these sorts of ideas.

She only had to finish her apprenticeship and she could do some real good as a doctor and as a medical researcher. Her life was finally starting to make sense, to go somewhere. It was quite obvious that she was doing fine all by herself, without him.

Really. She was.

She lay herself down on her bed and wept out her loneliness and grief.

* * *

Twenty years after that kiss, the Master slammed his fists down on the TARDIS console, nearly in tears of fury. He was denied leave to go back to Gallifrey. Again. All the long years of trying to get to her and he was still no closer. He could go anywhere else, but not there. He wasn't permitted to be on the same planet with her.

He buried his head in his hands and imagined a thousand terrible things he wanted to do to Rassilon and the High Council. He'd rip out their hearts and hold them beating before their screaming faces. Let him just find a way to get that thrice be dammed 'leash' out of his body and he'd burn through them like a vengeful comet!

Never mind. It wasn't important. (It was only everything) He needed to pull himself together. He had work to do. The Cruciform's defenses were complete now and he expected to be sent elsewhere soon, but first he had a problem to deal with.

The Rani was up to her usual games and, if he didn't put a halt to it, she'd alienate their allies with her 'experiments'. He couldn't care less how many fish-headed aliens died, but they needed the bastards to die for them in the war effort, not end up as sushi in her lab.

He groaned aloud. Worst mistake of his life, sleeping with that woman. What _had_ he been thinking?

* * *

The Doctor took some more readings and started to swear. He punched the new figures into his algorithm and waited for the results, as they began scrolling across the screen he began cursing again.

"Problem?" Romana asked him, looking up from where she seated in a green wing chair in his TARDIS, reading a book and frowning.

"We're running out of Time," he grumbled and she blinked at him.

"I thought we were making good time," she commented and he shook his head angrily.

"No, we're running out of actual Time!" he corrected her. "The collapsing time lines, the way that Time is getting twisted up as first the Daleks and then we go back to change history, again and again. It's pulling time apart!" Romana looked at him with her eyes growing larger and more concerned as he continued. "There is a limit to how often you can yank on the skeins of it, before the whole thing unravels!" he bit out.

"Let me see," she commanded and took the data pad from him, staring at the numbers while she chewed her lip. She breathed out, a sad, exhausted sound and he felt horrible for his earlier snappishness. "Omega's Fall," she whispered and he nodded.

"I am going to work on some possible solutions, but we may have to Time Lock the whole war zone at some point to stop the whole of Time from collapsing." His words and face were bleak as he spoke and Romana shivered.

A Time Lock was a serious thing; it would trap them in with the Daleks, with no escape for either side. It would turn the war into a cage match, where only one combatant could be left standing.

At this point, he wasn't at all sure his people could survive that.

* * *

The Master landed his TARDIS back on the Cruciform with a sigh. He always seemed to end up back here.

He'd spent six months rooting out Dalek slaves on Parnassus, a nerve wracking task that somehow also managed to be terribly tedious. The Daleks had discovered a way to use Nanite Swarms to convert the populace and he'd first had to capture and analyze one of the conversions and then reverse engineer the swarms to find a cure.

He'd then engineered his own swarms designed to keep the populace loyal to the Time Lord cause. There were some initial complaints of course, because no one ever wanted to do the things that were actually necessary to achieve victory, but when he carefully explained the alternatives to them, they shut up quickly. Sheep were always so easily led; just give them the right bit of carrot or stick. Wait, or was that donkeys? He could never keep those Earth metaphors straight.

He stalked through the corridors, heading to the engineering deck with his face set in a scowl. He'd just fixed the damn shields seven months ago and here he had to fix them again.

"Captain Master?" a voice addressed him and he turned abruptly to see a very large man in the uniform of a Captain of the CIA. He was nearly two meters tall and built like a Greek God. He had honest brown eyes, a slightly crooked nose and a mop of messy, dirty blond hair. The Master ran his eyes over him and decided that his open honest countenance was probably very effective in his line of work.

"Yes?" he snarled. He really hated the CIA and the whole 'Captain Master' thing was really aggravating. He was just the Master, nothing else was required. No one probably called the Doctor 'Colonel Doctor', it just sounded silly.

"I'm Captain Darginian, of the Celestial Intervention Agency," he introduced himself and the Master was struck by two things. One; the man was being polite, not sneering or looking down at him, and two; he was meeting the Master's eyes unflinchingly.

"You wanted something?" he answered, but his tone wasn't unkind, he was finding himself intrigued.

"I've been assigned by the High Council to spy on you for them," was the decidedly surprising answer. Not that it was surprising that the Council had sent someone to spy on him, they always had someone watching him, and he knew that. No, what was surprising was that his assigned spy had just walked up and identified himself as such.

"How refreshingly honest of you," the Master replied, his lip curling slightly in amusement.

"Look, Master, I don't want to have anything at all to tell those wankers on the High Council, so let's make a deal. You don't say anything I might have to report and I will happily not have anything to report, alright?" the proposal was outré enough that Master found himself laughing. He controlled himself quickly and shook his head in disbelief.

"Since I would never dream of doing anything that you might find necessary to report to the Council, I will agree to that bargain," he responded, surprised by his own feelings of friendliness towards the other man. Nothing had made him laugh in a very long time.

"Great. I'll just follow you around, looking menacing, and you do whatever job you're doing," Darginian informed him and the Master chuckled again.

"I'm sure you do an excellent job of 'looking menacing'," he complimented the agent and then resumed his walk down to Engineering. Behind him, Darginian paced, looking like a hired thug. It was most interesting how he could suddenly look so thick and stupid. It was also a point to consider. Darginian wasn't someone it would be wise to underestimate, especially after his oh so disarming introduction. This was a man both subtle and intelligent.

The Master flicked a look back over his shoulder and felt a smile tugging his lips. It might just be that he'd finally found someone he actually found amusing. How droll.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10 – Ships Passing

The Cruciform, Susan sighed and looked around the cramped quarters she'd been given. She was a day early, but she'd wanted to get settled in to her new duty station, get used to the station's gravity and its air, and make sure that the millions of minds wouldn't overwhelm her. She wasn't going to be able to keep her shields up as tightly as she was used to, not if she wanted to be able to function as a Doctor, after all.

"Any messages?" she asked mechanically, though all hope of that was gone now.

"No messages." The same reply she always got and she hadn't expected there to be one, so she really wasn't feeling disappointed.

Susan called up the station's duty roster, as she always did at each new place, checking to see if the Master was assigned here, even as she told herself that she was being stupid. Just as she always did. He was never stationed anywhere she was, it was like he was deliberately avoiding her. Which was good, it was very good. He ought to be avoiding her, after all.

Her hearts stuttered in surprise as the impossible happened. There it was; Captain, the Master, listed in Station Security Division. She tried to ignore the way that her blood sang in her veins as she caressed the words on the screen with her fingers.

Twenty years. They hadn't seen each other in twenty years. Why was she made happier just by the thought that she was on same space station with him?

It's not like the Master had ever come to see her. He had sent no messages and made no attempt to contact her. She had tried twice to contact him, she still didn't know why, but he'd never responded.

She couldn't even imagine what they would say to each other. What sort of conversation could they even have? "So, conquered any lesser species lately? Oh, and by the way, sorry we ended up connected so deeply that we can't get free." It was ridiculous. He hated her, despised her as the grandchild of his worst enemy. Even if he were to see her, what could there ever be between them?

Memories of the dream rose up to ambush her and she was gasping and forcing the sudden desperate need back down again. He was insane, dangerous, unhinged, yet she thought of him and could only remember that glorious beauty deep inside of him. Why couldn't she stop wanting him? Why was she still even asking herself these questions? She just had to stomp on her feelings and move on.

There were nice young men who smiled at her, asked her to go walking with them, but she felt nothing at the thought of them touching her. She had lived twenty years on one kiss, on one ridiculous dream, and it was beyond stupid of her, but she couldn't stop herself.

Then there was the question of what would happen if she could let go of him. The Tower's attacks on her mind had damaged her. She could barely stand even the lightest of mental touches, even from those close to her. The only mind she could bear within her own was her grandfather's and even then she had to keep her thoughts so carefully contained, so that she didn't leak out her secrets to him, that she hardly let him past her surface thoughts.

To smile back at any of those nice young men would mean having to open up to one of them someday and she knew that she couldn't do it. Let them call her frigid; let them call her an "ape lover", or whatever they wanted to. The only two minds she could tolerate were her grandfather's and the Master's, which was utterly pathetic.

She was just so stupid. That dream, that amazing, intoxicating, incredible dream, it was just her own subconscious mind acting up. There was probably a psychological term for it, Transference, or something like that. They were nothing to each other and that was as it should be.

"Right, enough of that!" she muttered and quashed the agitation that the mere sight of his name on a roster had roused in her. "Stupid, stupid, Susan, just grow up!" she admonished herself and pulled the white robe around her shoulders, the mark of a fully qualified medical Doctor.

She stepped out of her rooms and joined a group of other medical personnel as they strode down the corridors, forcibly shoving her emotional turmoil away in a box and sealing it shut.

She greeted her colleagues, felt their curious eyes on her, and the weight of expectations begin to press down on her. They were all watching her, the Doctor's granddaughter, who wasn't raised on Gallifrey, and who'd married a human. She couldn't ever be anything else than brilliant around them. She had to prove that her time living on other worlds hadn't damaged her, made her less than the other Time Lords. She had to prove to them that Grandfather had been right to take her away. She had to be so careful all the time, not slip up, and not show how different she was from them.

She straightened her back and put on her 'Doctor's face'. It was time again to pretend that she fit in, even if she never would. She'd been so alone for decades now. She would just have to accept that it would always be this way. She would never feel that sense of belonging that other people did. She just had to accept the feeling that no place would ever really be home to her.

* * *

The Master stood patiently, Darginian looming behind him like a pile of bricks, and listened to the General giving them their next assignments, but there was something eating at him. He was edgy, jumpy, his skin felt too tight and his scalp itched. He was nervous for no reason that he could understand.

He felt, rather than saw, movement behind him, a cluster of fluttering white robes, passing by in the hallway outside. He turned his head, feeling like he was being pulled on a string, and a pair of emerald green eyes met his. She paused in mid-stride, eyes gone wide in startled recognition and he found himself frozen in place, even as his body demanded that he move, run, go to her.

She was the same as he remembered, though not as thin and starved looking as she had been. Her skin was pale alabaster, her hair a sweep of darkness, pulled into a ponytail, already losing tendrils that swept across her cheek, and then his eyes were arrested by her mouth, pink and slightly open. It all burned itself into him in an instant.

"Susan," he whispered and watched her own lips forming his name, the name he'd abandoned so long ago.

"Koschei."

She was jostled by an older man, who glared at her, and hustled her along. He instantly hated that man. She glanced back once more, her eyes searing him like branding irons, but she was soon lost in the crowd. Gone again. He felt as though a fist were squeezing his hearts and he stood there like a statue, fighting against the urge to run after her, to grab her, to shove her against a wall and reenact that long ago dream with her, for real this time.

"Captain," the General barked, recalling him to his senses. "You and Captain Darginian will be going to Nydia to repair their defense systems and redesign them; your Trans Mat is scheduled to depart in ten minutes from now." The Master nodded his head, both in acknowledgement and understanding.

He was being sent away, sent to where he could not touch her. Rassilon's memory was long and he was still determined to separate them.

* * *

Darginian was bored by the routine briefing, but kept himself looking dangerous and ready regardless. The Master was not someone to be taken lightly and he had enough problems with the conflicting nature of his orders that he couldn't risk being distracted.

The Master's head whipped around suddenly and his eyes locked on a girl in white doctor's robes walking by outside. Susanatrevalar, he realized. She'd regenerated and he felt a stab of guilt seeing that. She was sane though, which was far more than he could have hoped.

She was staring at the Master and he was staring back at her, his lips parted, eyes gone soft, a yearning in his face that Dar was certain he wasn't aware of.

The strange part was the girl was watching him with the same look. There was longing, desire, and something he couldn't quite grasp. She was pushed on by some elderly doctor and the Master frowned as she was moved away. She looked back and Dar was shocked by the heat in her eyes before she vanished again.

What the hell was that about, he wondered, watching the Master close himself up again, becoming once more the controlled, careful egomaniac. But, Dar knew he'd glimpsed beneath the mask and what he saw was surprisingly gentle.

He turned back to the briefing, pondering the conundrum.

* * *

She made her excuses to the others and darted away through the crowds, sure that she was being stupid, certain that she'd gone as mad as he was. She followed the faint trail of their connection and made it to the departure bay. He was stepping onto the pad, with a looming hulk of a man at his side, and her voice caught in her throat. He was leaving. Why?

His eyes found hers in the crowd and she opened her mouth to say something, anything, but it was too late, he was gone, vanished in a flash of energy.

"Don't…." she whispered to empty air, but even she didn't know what the end of that sentence was going to be.

She stood alone in the crowded bay, not knowing what she'd expected, not knowing what she'd hoped for, just feeling like she'd lost something infinitely precious, something necessary to her.

God, but what a fool she was.

* * *

He'd had two seconds of hope, of feeling that something was going right for him and then the shock of the Trans Mat, the feeling of dislocation, of dissolution, washed over him and those emerald green eyes were gone. Again.

He stepped forward and glared at the guard sent to meet him and escort him to his new duty station, the man recoiled in fear, which made him feel slightly better. He listened with only half an ear to the nervous chattering explanations of his guide, his mind dwelling entirely on Susan. Darginian was at his heels as usual, but he hardly even noticed the other man.

Why had she come to the Trans Mat? She'd been about to speak, what had she been going to say? Was she making sure he was leaving? Did she want him to stay? His hearts sped up in mingled hope and need. Could she feel it too? Did she want him as much as he wanted her? Had she tried to contact him, tried to see him, only to be prevented by Rassilon?

He laughed, disgusted at himself, as he forcibly quashed his mounting hopes. What sort of idiot was he to imagine that she felt anything but relief at his departure? Even if there were some residual attraction, it wasn't enough for either of them to do anything with. She wasn't a fool and only a fool would put themselves willingly into his power. He knew what he was, he was proud to be a predator amongst the mewling whimpering masses.

He reached up and rubbed at his teeth for a moment, reassuring himself that they were no longer fangs. That world had been more powerful than he'd imagined and he wasn't sure that being quite so much the predator had been a good thing. He still shuddered at the thought of cats.

"These will be your rooms, Captain," the guard informed him with a wild-eyed glance at him, before scurrying away, and he stalked into it.

His TARDIS was already there, parked in the corner, looking like an army locker. He frowned at it, wishing he could get in and just go. He wanted to go and find Susan, drag her into his TARDIS if he must, imprison her there until she broke, until she begged for his touch, until she craved him as much as he craved her.

This obsession was the worst sort of folly, the height of madness, and he despised himself for such weakness. To be so much in another's power was to court destruction, yet he was so tightly wired into her that he'd turned down several likely partners, all because they weren't her.

He was sometimes torn between the desire to possess her and the desire to kill her, to break this connection and free himself. But he knew, from his reaction today, that it wasn't possible. Even if he killed her, he would never be free.

"Captain? Who was the girl who came to the Trans Mat?" Darginian asked him and he turned to see curiosity, but still no contempt or mockery in the man's eyes.

"Susanatrevalar, a Prydonian, of the Lady Professor's line," he answered and he could hear how his voice caressed her name. He closed his eyes and willed some self-control.

"The Doctor's granddaughter, the one that married a human?" the CIA agent asked, surprised, but again, the Master could sense no judgment in the man. He was honestly curious, interested, but not cruelly inquisitive.

"Yes," he answered, but he wanted to say so much more. He wanted to tell the other man about the sunlight in her soul, about the way her eyes would look inside of you, and how much he wanted her. He wanted to say that she was his, how she belonged to him and only to him, but the words remained inside of him. He was silent.

"She's beautiful," Darginian commented and it was just a simple statement of fact, like he'd said the suns rose that morning.

"Yes, she is," he replied and knew that he'd revealed more of his feelings in three words than if he'd said all the rest of it.

* * *

Darginian watched as the Master turned to his things and began picking out the tools and equipment he would need. He wondered if the other man knew how much his voice trembled when he spoke of the girl, or that his hands were shaking as he worked.

The agent turned away and gave him some privacy, feeling rather shaken himself. Who could have imagined that the Master, could love a girl so deeply that just speaking about her made his eyes go soft and his body quiver?

"What's our first job?" he asked and the Master turned and looked at him, lips twisted into a bitter smile.

"Upgrading the defense grids, of course, what else?" he answered and Dar saw him taking deep breaths of control from the corner of his eyes. The older man was deeply shaken by his encounter, brief as it was, and a sudden thought occurred to him. The way that his head had whipped around towards her and hers had swiveled in answer, spoke to a connection between them. Were they truly bonded? The Doctor's only grandchild, of the Highest of Houses, was she soul wed to the Master, the insane, hated, cast-off child of a lower house?

He controlled his own reaction to that thought carefully. Despite all that he had heard of the Master's madness and savagery, he'd seen little to confirm the stories as of yet. Perhaps there was more to him than gossip and rumor had said.

"Can I carry anything?" he asked and the Master looked at him startled. Allowing himself to be burdened would make him more vulnerable if the Master choose to try to attack him. Even asking was a sign of trust, an offer of something akin to friendship.

"The tool case, then, if you want to," the Master answered, shrugging, as though they both didn't understand that something of significance had passed between them.

"Very well," Dar answered and picked it up, swinging it over his shoulder. The Master rose and studied him, head cocked. There was a breathless moment when options were considered and then he simply turned, showing his back to Dar, letting himself be open and vulnerable to the agent and walked out the door. Darginian took a deep breath, wondering suddenly where his loyalties lay these days, and then he followed the Master, realizing that that in itself was his answer.

* * *

Andred tackled Lt. Grest and pinned him down. He'd thrown his mental shields up as strongly as he could, but Grest's mental collapse was like standing next to a black hole, it sucked at his own mind in a very unpleasant manner.

Two other soldiers ran over to help him as Grest screamed and thrashed about, trying to fight some enemy that existed only in his mind.

Two nurses, mauve vests rippling as they ran, dashed in and jammed a neural inhibitor over Grest's head. The sudden silence and cessation of movement was jarring; it always looked to Andred like someone had hit the 'off' switch. Grest lay still, his chest rising and falling, his gray eyes staring off into space.

"Got him Colonel, thank you!" one of the nurses told him and Andred released the young lieutenant and stood up, brushing off his uniform.

"Yes, quite," Andred answered, checking his own mental status carefully as he did so.

"He's the third one this week," Sgt. Hewst muttered and Andred nodded.

"We've had a lot of TLC's this month; it's bound to be stressful. He'll be fine in a few days," he reassured the Sergeant, patting him on the shoulder as he walked back towards his office.

"All these 'never-were' problems are getting worse," Hewst sighed out, running a weary hand across his close cropped black hair. "The more time lines collapse, the greater the corruption of the probability matrix becomes. Pretty soon things that were, but aren't anymore, or things that never-were, but could have been, are going to start creeping into the here and now." Andred nodded his understanding, remembering that Hewst had been a temporal engineer before the war.

"Any ideas about what we could do about that?" Andred asked, with a frown etched deep on his face. He couldn't remember the last time he'd smiled, but he was pretty sure the time was measured not in days but in decades. Gods, but he wished Leela would get back soon, he couldn't relax when she was out of his sight. He was having nightmares of waking up one morning to discover she'd ceased to exist. Her mission was important, but it tried his sanity.

"I'm an engineer, Sir, not a theorist, you'd have to talk to the Doctor about that one," Hewst answered, with a shake of his head.

"I'll make sure to send him a memo, assuming that, after the next collapse, we have still had this conversation." Andred replied, but as jokes went, it wasn't particularly funny.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11 – Strange Bedfellows

The blasts of energy from the laser cannon barrage were deafening. Darginian was following him, as the Master made his way through the maze-like rubble field, searching for the next Dalek minefield. He ignored the CIA agent, his mind bent on his task. He scanned the area, checking the readings on his laser screwdriver with a frown.

"Found something?" the Captain asked him, his brown eyes doing their own more primitive scan.

"Yes, now keep quiet, so I don't blow us both up," he snapped and Darginian leaned against the remnants of a wall with a sigh. There was an audible click and the Master spun to see Darginian slowly close his eyes.

"I seem to have leaned against a bomb," the agent told him in a perfectly calm voice. "You'd better start running."

"Nonsense," he spat back. "Where will I find anyone as rational as you are to spy on me?" He stepped back to where the other man was leaning and ran a scan up the wall.

"Master, you really should just leave me," Darginian murmured and those brown eyes were watching him with curiosity and interest. He shrugged back at him.

"When have I ever done what I should?" he countered and slipped his micro tools behind Darginian, working to disarm the bomb. This close to him he could smell the nervousness on his skin. Despite his composed attitude, the spy was scared and the Master's respect for him increased. With a few deft motions he disarmed the bomb and let out his breath. "All done, Captain." He informed him and, with no hesitation, Darginian straightened.

"Thank you." There was no breathless gratitude in his words, but there was also no expectation of future favors either. Darginian continued to take him exactly as he was and that was novel enough to make him smile.

"I'd hate to have to break in a new spy, Captain," he waved off the whole interlude and continued on.

* * *

Darginian watched the Master moving forward again in confusion. He had no idea what to make of a homicidal narcissist who seemed to have no compunctions about killing people, yet had just risked his own life to save him.

There were depths here that he didn't understand and he hated his ignorance.

He followed after him, placing his feet more carefully this time, aware that he'd almost died from sheer carelessness.

* * *

The Doctor stood by the High Council's table, Susan beside him, and listened to the latest planning session with a sick feeling in his stomach.

Rassilon was staring at a Sim Board, moving armies and fleets around, discussing strategy and tactics with his ministers and generals. The Doctor was appalled as he listened, wondering when Rassilon had gone mad and how he'd missed it for so long. Why did madmen always sound so calm and reasonable? He'd pondered that one for years.

"Well, we'll lose half a million defending it, but if we don't push them here, they can slip around us…" He let the words fade out of his mind as he tried not to think about the terrible costs that had been paid already in this war. They'd already fought for nearly a hundred years, or five hundred, or a thousand, depending on which collapsed time lines you counted.

It wasn't as though Rassilon was alone in his madness, either. Mental Collapse was now the biggest problem on Gallifrey, as people who'd lived through a thousand collapsed time lines, who'd lost too many people, died too many times, and suffered too much pain, finally lost their ability to cope with the cumulative horrors of a time war.

The Doctor could feel it in his own mind, the tearing of sanity in those around him. So far, he'd held it away from himself, kept his mind intact, but he was starting to wonder. Was this what it felt like in the Master's head? Was this what it had been like for him at the Academy, feeling himself unraveling and not knowing how to stop it?

"We may simply have to sacrifice Golgotha, if we want to save Avalon, which is of far greater strategic importance," General Goethe was saying, a frown on his patrician features. Councilor Flavia shook her head.

"But the Golgothans have been our staunchest allies!" she protested. "If we abandon them, not only will we have broken our word to them, but our other allies will cease to trust us!"

"Then find me the resources to hold them both!" the General shouted back and his grief and anger were suddenly apparent. Up until now, the conversation had been polite, amiable, but the cracks were starting to show now.

The War was not going well and everyone in this room knew it.

"We have other problems as well," the Doctor interrupted. "Probability is starting to shatter; we're getting time line leakage into the main stream."

"How serious is it?" Rassilon asked and the Doctor handed him the equations he'd been working on. No matter that Rassilon was no longer completely sane, he was still one of the most brilliant minds that Gallifrey had ever birthed and he flipped through the Doctor's work swiftly, eyes going hard as the problem became apparent to him.

"We might be able to install Probability Stabilizers and run them off of the Eye, but even that will probably only hold for a few decades, after that, I cannot be certain the integrity of our Time Line will be supportable," the Doctor told him, face bleak.

"I can make some adjustments to your designs, get at least ninety years out of the stabilizers, but that will be all," Rassilon confirmed. "There might be a way to bend the probability curves, prevent complete fracture, even then, but it will be difficult."

"We could possibly set up dampeners or even siphon some of the energy off," the Doctor suggested and the Lord President nodded.

"Excellent idea, get to work on it, as quickly as you can."

"Doctor, may we have the report of the Surgeon General's Office?" Councilor Flavia asked her with a smile and Susan handed her the reports with a polite bow.

"My Lord President, My Lords and Ladies of the Council, the Surgeon General sends me with his report and requests," she began. "We are short on beds on several of the platforms, there is a rising incidence of Mental Collapse in front line soldiers, fifteen percent of our fighting force is presently incapacitated by it, the good news is that from our estimates at least twenty percent of the Dalek forces are also suffering from it…"

* * *

Andred felt the wrenching loss, even though they were far from Gallifrey. His hands clenched on the edge of the table and his face turned to stone. It felt as though someone had ripped his arm off in a moment and the agony was nearly overwhelming. The gaping hole in his mind hurt and he felt suddenly reduced, less than he had been even a moment ago.

"Love?" Leela murmured, stepping up behind him and wrapping her arms around his waist. "What's wrong?"

"My brother had a mental breakdown and killed himself. He refused to regenerate." The words were like stones on his heart and Leela began to weep behind him. He turned and clutched her against him, holding onto her like she could vanish from his arms.

He was missing a piece of his heart, of his soul, and the terrible feeling of emptiness where once his brother's mind had lived in his was a gaping wound in him.

Even if he survived the war, how much of him would be left?

* * *

Darginian followed the Master, as had become his habit on these ground missions, making sure to step where he stepped and not touch anything before he'd seen the Master scan it.

The Dalek's slaves were swarming over the city and the dark haired madman in front of him had just released a Nanite swarm that ought to destroy most of them. Dar felt a certain disgusted sympathy for the slaves. They'd been sentient beings before the Daleks had gone in and re-written their brains. However, sympathy was academic when someone was trying to kill you.

A Converted Draconian leapt over a wall at the Master and Darginian's shout of warning proved unnecessary, as the Master flipped the slave over him, grabbed the wires that stuck out of the creature's head and ripped them out, all in one smooth motion. Bits of brain and a gush of blood erupted from the slave's head and he sank down, shrieking and thrashing from pure reflex for several long moments.

"Disgusting," the Master clucked, brushing with futile gestures at the gray and red mess on his pants. He seemed uninterested in the plight of the Draconian, or in his death agonies, and Dar felt a little sick watching his callous disregard.

Another slave, this one human-looking, leapt from the darkness and Dar tracked it and killed it with his gun before it had a chance to land on the Master.

"Nice shot," the Master commented and Dar could see the calculations in his eyes. If he'd not fired, the creature most likely would have killed the Master, possibly permanently. So, they were now one for one on life saving.

"We should keep moving," he told the dark-haired man, who was smirking at him with a knowing look. It didn't make them friends, of course. The Master didn't have friends, after all. Still, he wasn't exactly sure why he felt protective of a man who'd just ripped out another man's brains. It made no sense at all.

"This used to be a nice planet, they made excellent croissants," the Master told him with a frown as he looked around at the devastation. "I liked it here." There was anger in his words and Darginian watched him carefully step around the corpse of the Draconian.

It occurred to him that callous disregard wasn't enjoyment. Thinking about it, the Master never seemed to enjoy the actual killing. What he enjoyed was the challenge. He seemed to like pitting his will and intellect against the Daleks, using his ingenuity to escape from danger and defeat his opponents. But, he wasn't a sadist.

"Maybe, once the war is over, they can make them again," Dar replied and the Master shook his head.

"Unlikely. The man you just shot was the Master Baker for this world. There won't be anyone left who even knows how to make a cracker, by the end of this," he informed Dar and the CIA agent felt sick. He glanced down at the man he'd killed. The Baker had once been plump, well-fed, and prosperous, but now he was a half-starved corpse dead in the middle of his home town, which had been turned into a battlefield.

"You knew him?" he asked the Master and the dark eyes looked down at the dead man with something akin to regret.

"He had two daughters, both ugly as sin, but they could bake like angels," he answered and his voice had that curious gentleness that Dar had heard there before. The Master shook himself and shot Dar a wry glance. "Even as ugly as they were, I was willing to bed them both for a half dozen croissants," he laughed and Dar found himself laughing as well.

There were days when he really wanted to hate the Master, yet he found it far harder than it ought to be. The other man chuckled as they moved forward again and shot Dar a grin of pure joy that seemed to warm the world.

He was a bundle of contradictions that all together made no sense at all. Dar just couldn't seem to get a handle on him. It was enough to drive an agent insane.

* * *

The Council meeting had finally dragged to an end. Her grandfather, Romana at his shoulder, was headed straight back into the fighting. He hugged her good-bye and she made herself smile brightly at him. Visions or no, there was always the chance, each time he went to off back to the Front, that he might not ever return. She didn't want his last sight to be of her crying. Still, it was so hard to watch him walk away. Romana waved a good-bye and Susan waved back, before turning to gather up her things.

"My Lady, Susanatrevalar," Rassilon addressed her and she turned and bowed to him. She made certain that it was absolutely correct, the precise angle that expressed his rank and her own high standing, but giving not even a tiny bit more to him. He smiled at her, but his jaw was clenched just a bit. He had come to expect a certain amount of worship from his people and her resistance seemed to irritate him.

"My Lord President." Her voice was cool, yet polite. She didn't want to anger him, her family would pay too dearly for that, but this man was not her friend and she knew it.

"Walk with me," he commanded and her hearts froze in sudden apprehension. He extended his arm and she was forced by protocol to accept it, even though touching him made her skin crawl.

He escorted her into the gardens outside the Council chambers and she walked beside him, face emotionless, and hearts racing in fear. The gardens were walled and soundproofed and very empty. She was immediately on edge.

"You wished to speak with me to some purpose, My Lord President?" she finally asked, unable to stand the silence any longer.

"Is it necessary to have a reason to want to talk to the grandchild of an old friend?" he retorted with a genial sounding chuckle and she felt a jolt of terror going through her. When Rassilon was making an effort to be charming and suave, it was a sure sign that he wanted something.

"I have twenty patients who await my presence, my Lord President, my duties are as pressing as your own," she answered, drawing away from him as much as she dared. She did have patients waiting for her, but she also desperately wanted to be anywhere else.

"You make conversation with you rather difficult, my Lady, when does a doctor _not_ have patients?" She had too many secrets she needed to keep; she couldn't linger here around this man. She knew too much.

"My Lord President, with a war on, all doctors find conversation difficult on any subject other than their patient's welfare," she replied, trying to keep as much mental and verbal distance between them as she could.

"Then I shall get to my point quickly, my Lady, you have a reputation for being a slave to your work, but you should think about the future of your gene line as well. To keep your genes from being passed on would be a crime. You must consider the future, my Lady," he murmured, his eyes mocking her. Did he know that her mind had been damaged by the torture she'd gone through? Was this just a small cruelty, with which he could while away the hours? Or was there some other, more sinister thought behind his words. Confusion and fear moved through her, but she forced a look of distant calm onto her face.

"I have no interest in anything outside of my work," she assured him, pulling away from his arm, and he frowned.

"You have long been of interest to me, My Lady, your genetic pattern has been studied by the experts and they all seem to think that you are the Arkytior, yet you show little sign of such power," he mused idly, watching her with the eyes of a cobra. "The last two who manifested the power did so at an early age and their abilities were most impressive."

"Perhaps they are mistaken in their analysis of me?" she suggested and he shook his head. He had bright blue eyes, that should have been beautiful, but their coldness and calculation made them repellent to her. That he could easily recall the last two Arkytior, which were to her creatures from distant legend, was rather disturbing.

"I have thought on it for a very long time, My Lady, and have come to a different conclusion," he returned and his smile was razor blades and blood. "I think that the power is something that resides dormant in the recipient until it is awoken."

Terror flooded her, the Master might be the strongest telepath amongst the Time Lords, but for absolute power, Rassilon was far more potent. He had none of the Master's finesse and skill; his had always been a brute force approach. He could flatten her in a moment, crush all that she was, and leave her witless and drooling.

"I don't understand," she lied, throwing up a façade of confusion and fortifying her defenses.

"I think that what is needed here is a guiding hand, someone with a better understanding of the situation," he replied through a shark's grin.

"I am quite content with being a Doctor, my Lord President; I have no interest in anything or anyone outside of my professional labors. I don't need any more powers than the ones I already have," she reiterated and tried to pull free.

"But, my Lady, your people do need that power. You could save them from the Daleks!" he promised.

"My Lord President, I have read the tales and know full well that the Arkytior was an uncontrollable force, as likely to kill her own kind as to save them. Do you not recall that part?" she asked with a touch of desperation

"The legends do not tell us everything, my Lady, there was most certainly a way to control that power," he contradicted her. "If the woman be mastered, bound, before the power comes to her, then it can be contained." He leaned in close to whisper to her. "A bond-mate, my Lady, could channel that power properly. A husband for you ought to be found. Even if the power never manifests, your children might have that potential as well." He stood up and smiled, playing the role of a genial uncle, and she wanted to throw up from sheer terror.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12 – Running Away

Terror was freezing her blood; Rassilon couldn't know that she was already connected to the Master. She couldn't be married off to some crony of Rassilon's, not with bits of the Master's mind trapped inside of her own. If he discovered that she was already bound, that the Master had gotten there before him, he would not be pleased at all.

He might go into her mind himself to try to break the connections and he'd soon find the Final Vision and that must be prevented at all costs. To get to the power he imagined was locked inside of her, would he kill the Master to make her mind available to him? Of course he would, the man would stop at nothing.

"My Lord President, I appreciate your concern. You are right that the future must be considered and I shall be certain to do so, very carefully," she replied and then scampered from the garden before he could continue with the conversation.

* * *

Susan reached the Hospital in record time and was on shift, working, in moments of entering, making sure she was surrounded by patients, doctors, a flurry of witnesses around her. She didn't imagine that Rassilon would have her dragged away to be wed over a block, like their primitive ancestors once had, but he was obviously growing desperate and desperate men did stupid things sometimes.

Terry, whose specialty was Regeneration Crisis, waved at her as she came in to the patient's ward and she smiled and waved back. She was thinking fast, trying to figure out how she could protect herself from Rassilon.

She went to the hospital's terminal and keyed her Great Gran's office number. She could reach her telepathically without the call, but it was harder and this was already going to be hard enough for her.

"Susan? What a pleasant surprise!" the Lady Professor smiled at her from a view screen and Susan returned the smile with as realistic a simulation as she could manage.

"I'm having a really great day at the Hospital, Great Gran, and just had to tell you," she burbled. It was hard, but she allowed her mind to reach out, keeping a covering babble of cheerful nonsense running along as she did so. Limiting contact as best she was able to, she deposited the scene between herself and Rassilon into the older woman's mind. Great Gran slumped and seemed to age for a moment, suddenly looking her full two thousand years, before she straightened again and looked at Susan with grim understanding.

"I'm so happy that you're enjoying your work there, Susan. I'll call you again soon and we can have a nice chat." They nodded at each other and then Susan went back to work.

* * *

The Master sat down in front of the computers and typed in the codes at a rapid pace. As he had done at every station he'd been assigned to, he set in place over-rides and failsafes that would ensure his complete control of all systems, should he ever require them. He did all of this openly, since none of the people around him were clever enough to even realize he was doing it.

Nearby Darginian leaned against a wall, eyes sleepy, looking inattentive, but the Master wasn't fooled. The CIA agent could explode into action at an instant's notice, as the Master was well aware. That several instances had passed where that action hadn't been aimed at himself was still an interesting puzzle to him.

It seemed that despite everything, Darginian liked him. What was most interesting though was that the Master found he was growing accustomed to the hulking man's presence. On the occasions when Dar had to rest, or get food, the Master found that his absence was palpable. He wasn't sure quite what their relationship was, but it wasn't antagonistic.

"Are there still problems with the secondary lasers?" the calm deep voice asked him and he nodded.

"Yes, the damnable things were poorly constructed to begin with and the usage they've been put to has rendered them nearly useless," he answered. He was strangely comfortable around Dar. Not that he wasn't quite aware that Dar was there to spy on him, that he'd report him if he was forced to observe something, or that he wasn't perfectly capable of killing the Master to save himself, but even so, he felt at ease.

"So, you are obviously bypassing the control panels for them because they are flawed?" Dar asked and the Master froze for an instant. Dar was apparently a good enough programmer to see that he was working on systems outside of his job's parameters. Was he good enough to know exactly what the Master was doing? Possibly, but he was also giving him cover with that suggestion.

"Obviously," he answered. "The whole system is riddled with errors and even the sub-routines are faulty. I'm just writing a little extra code to make sure it doesn't crash under pressure," he lied smoothly.

"You might want to add a maintenance log as well," Dar suggested and the Master turned to look at his personal spy with a carefully neutral expression. A maintenance log would tell him if anyone came by and tampered with his by-passes after he'd left and he realized that Darginian was very subtly warning him that his work was being checked by the CIA after he was done. He wished he knew how far he could trust the agent. He could be setting him up, but somehow the Master couldn't quite believe that. Dar had had too many opportunities to either kill or betray him and he hadn't taken any of them.

"I'll do that, thank you Darginian," he answered softly and the big blond just nodded, his rugged features displaying no sign that he'd just cast his dice on the Master's side once and for all. The Master turned back around and began typing rapidly, trying not to feel warm and a little happy.

It had been a long time since he'd had a friend.

* * *

Great Gran pulled strings and got her transferred off world within weeks of Rassilon's little tête-à-tête with her and she was deeply grateful for it. Keeping away from him was vital if she was to keep her mind whole and intact. She did notice that his revenge was being felt though. She was off-world, yes, but she was being sent to the worst stations each time.

For instance, she thought with resignation, Thorandia, her latest posting.

She stepped off of the Trans mat with a professional stride, but it was obvious from the worn bulkheads and chipped paint that Thorandia wasn't a high priority in the war.

"Doctor Susanatrevalar?" a slender creature that looked like disastrous mating between a mop and a stalk of celery addressed her in Galactic Standard and she bowed politely, noting the station commander badge hanging slightly askew from its foliage. It was a Remyl, a race that was biologically somewhere between plant and animal and Susan was grateful for that minor in Xenobotany. Gender was tricky with Remyls though, they shifted gender as their mating cycles progressed and only the suffix of their names told you which they were at any given time.

"Reporting for duty, Commander," she answered. Two of the frond-like tentacles on its head waved in surprise. "Permission to come aboard?"

"You are a Time Lord, aren't you?" it asked.

"Yes," she responded, rather puzzled.

"Fair Water Falling, a polite Time Lord, will wonders never cease!" the commander muttered and led her off. Susan blushed and suppressed the urge to apologize for her people.

The sick bay was tiny and underequipped, but there was a type 90 TARDIS sitting in the corner. It wasn't as old as Grandfather's (nothing still flying was as old as Grandfather's), but it wasn't the latest model either.

"That was delivered yesterday, for you, it seems," the Commander informed her.

"This will be very helpful. I can set up a secondary sick bay in there to expand the amount of space we have here," she murmured, already looking around the room to see what else they would need.

"You would use your TARDIS to care for our soldiers?" The shocked tone the Commander was using made her turn and look at him in sudden sympathy.

"I don't know who your last medical officer was, Commander, but he was obviously a piss-poor excuse for a doctor." She spun on her heel, pulled out her data pad, and began opening the cabinets, jotting down the contents.

"What are you doing?"

"Making an inventory, so that I can requisition more medicines and equipment, of course. Do you have laboratory facilities?" she asked next and it shook its head, fronds bobbing. "Right, I'll need to set up a lab as well. Do we have any nurses?" Another negative shake. "Well, I'll make do."

"I am Fifz-it, Doctor Susanatrevalar," the commander informed her and Susan smiled.

"Just Susan, or 'Doc', will do fine, Ma'am," she answered and the Commander waved three fronds at her, the equivalent of a smile from a race that had nothing that a humanoid could define as a 'face'.

"You are a great improvement, 'Doc', I welcome you with open branches!" the Commander chuckled and withdrew to let Susan work. There was a lot to do.

She spent the first hour just running the nano-scrubbers over every surface, scouring the place to antiseptic cleanliness. She sent off her requisitions and then went to explore her new TARDIS.

It was a lovely lady and she wandered through the rooms with a small smile. Clean and antiseptic white was the default desktop, which wasn't a bad thing, but a bit off-putting for patients. She browsed through her options and chose something in soft beige and gold. She reconfigured it so that the medi bay opened off of the main doors and she shifted the console room back and behind the dispensary. She'd seen patients go insane and try to fly away from the battlefield, so she set up a lock for the console controls as well.

She patted the console and activated the Symbiotic Relationship Circuits, opening her mind to her TARDIS and feeling the symbiotic connection between them snapping into place. The warm gentle sentience of her TARDIS washed through her and Susan felt as though some long starved place in her soul was being fed.

She'd been raised in Grandfather's TARDIS, she'd spent half her life in it. His TARDIS had been her friend, her home, her refuge, for so long and being left behind on Earth had hurt for so many reasons, one of them being the loss of that home, the only home she remembered having. Now she wasn't quite so alone anymore.

She had a home again.

* * *

"…and so, I think I've got a fungicide that will work on the rot the Remyls have been suffering from, Grandfather, which is a great relief. My other problem though is far more perplexing, the Acazzi are an arboreal race, they've been losing fur, possibly from all the stress they've been under, and I'm having trouble finding a solution for that. I've been dumping anti-anxiety herbs into all of their food, but the regrowth of the lost fur has been slow…"

The Doctor switched off Susan's letter and smiled. His little granddaughter, the girl who used to scream and run into his arms whenever things got scary, was out there helping people. She was calm, resolute, and courageous, she was wonderful and he was so very proud of her.

"Are you listening to her letter, again?" Romana asked with a laugh, prowling into the console room, still tousled from sleep.

"Maybe…" he drawled, and gave her an impish grin. She stepped into his arms and kissed him, wrapping a leg around his and moving against him in a decidedly suggestive manner. "Did you want something?" he asked with an expression of innocent enquiry.

"I think I need a Doctor," she growled and he laughed.

"That is the cheesiest line I've ever heard!"

"Feel free to use it," she purred, knowing him well enough to see how much it appealed to his vanity and sense of humor both.

"Maybe later," he growled and dived in for a kiss. Talking was quite overrated, after all.

They got out of bed again, some hours later, then showered, and pulled on fresh uniforms reluctantly.

"Where are we headed next?" Romana asked him and he shrugged. It was nice to be needed, of course, but he was getting tired of the way they were always being sent to the hot spots, like they were the High Council's Fire Brigade, sent to piss on any fires that sprang up.

"Colima Base," he answered. "They are having serious problems with Never-weres coming through."

"Is it my imagination or is there some sort of organization starting to happen between them all?" Romana commented and he groaned. "What?"

"I was really hoping it was just _my_ imagination." He strode into the console room, with her on his heels, and together they began to set co-ordinates, flying the TARDIS like a well-oiled machine. He looked up at her and grinned. His best mate, his friend with many wonderful benefits, his companion and partner, who he loved so very much. She looked up at him and grinned back, catching his mood as she always did.

He was so glad that if he had to fly into hell, she was the one he was going with.

* * *

Susan was flung around the room like a rat being shaken by a terrier. The loud booms of incoming missiles breaking against the shield walls were deafening. She grabbed for something stable to hold onto and found herself clutching the operating table, her face inches from her patient's desperate wounds.

He was dying and she couldn't stop it. Her medical equipment was being knocked around the room, everything that hadn't been bolted down was tumbling with it, and she closed her eyes and held on tight.

She recalled a face from so long ago. Sarah Jane Smith. Her grandfather had brought the young woman to visit her on several occasions and Susan had grown very fond of her. Funny, full of spirit, ready to wade in and dig ditches, or haul down rubble with the rest of them; she'd endeared herself to everyone on the work crews.

One of Susan's favorite memories was sitting on a hillside with Sarah Jane, David, and her grandfather, eating a picnic lunch, watching the dredging crews as they worked on restoring the Thames to its former glory. They'd laughed so hard, as the petite brunette had told them stories of her travels with Grandfather. She'd been so vibrant, so alive, and so full of laughter.

"Please let them all be safe," Susan whispered.

Power faded, lights dimmed and then went out, gravity failed and the temperature began to slowly drop.

Her patient began to glow softly, the start of his regeneration. Using the light of that, Susan floated herself to a cabinet and found a Zero Crash, an emergency regeneration blanket. She hauled it back, kicking off the wall carefully, and catching herself on the edge of the operating table. She wrapped him in the silvery material, impregnated with tannins and other necessities for the process; it also blocked out energy emissions and acted as a second-rate Zero Room.

"I wish I could do more," she murmured.

The whole room jolted hard, she was flung back against a wall and pain erupted through her stomach. Anguish, hot and white, that dragged a scream from her that made her hurt, if possible, even more. She looked down and saw the twisted remnants of a surgical droid, its cutter attachment poking out of her gut.

She closed her eyes and wanted to weep. Killed by her own equipment, the irony was too great. With a cry, she wrenched free of the cutter, the agonizing pain like fire in her gut.

She found herself floating free, her blood pumping from her wound and forming tiny round droplets that floated through the air. It was getting cold now. Her breath was visible in the air. That's not good, she thought fuzzily. This wasn't a good place to go through regeneration. She needed things, warmth, tannins, a null environment, things that were not present just now.

A patch floated by her outstretched hand and she grabbed it to stop the bleeding. She could only seal the front part of her wound; the back was beyond her reach. She was thinking of what a mess it would make when the gravity came back, even as she was dying.

"I'm sorry, Grandfather, I don't think this is working," she murmured. There was no golden light around her and she could feel the darkness rushing in. Her last thought was of the Master, she hoped he'd forgive her.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13 – Fairy Stories

The Master jerked up from his cot, tossed back the covers and lurched to his feet, before he stumbled forwards and fell to his knees.

"Susan!" She was in trouble! She was dying! Somewhere, out there in the dark and the cold, she was fading away. He was losing her!

He closed his eyes and reached for her. He didn't know what to do, there was no rational thought. He acted completely on instinct. She was his and he had lost everything else, he wouldn't lose any more, especially not her.

He found the fading glow of her mind and wrapped himself around it. He held that light, the dazzling sunshine of her soul, and saw how much dimmer it had become over the last century. So much sorrow, so much loneliness, had eaten at her bit by bit until she was a fractured, faded shadow of what she had been.

He could feel the sluggish efforts of her body to regenerate and he pushed on them, forcing them to function. He fed her his strength, his life, and little by little she shifted, changed, and was reborn.

He collapsed on the floor of his room, feeling like he'd run a marathon. So tired and spent that he couldn't even crawl back into bed, just falling asleep on the carpeting.

* * *

Darginian woke from his sleep to the sound of the Master's agonized cry.

"Susan!" he shouted and Darginian was racing down the corridor, gun drawn, wondering what could have happened.

He burst into the room and found the Master collapsed asleep on the floor, his legs tangled in the sheets. He was covered in a sheen of sweat and his eyes looked bruised from exhaustion.

He leaned over and checked the older man's pulse. It was a bit fast, but was already slowing as he slipped more deeply into sleep. Dar lifted him up and carried him back to the bed, slipping him between the sheets and covering him up again.

Asleep, the Master looked strangely vulnerable, the mask of his confidence and poise striped away to reveal a man who dreamed of a girl he couldn't reach.

Dar left the room and shut the door behind him. He wandered into the console room and checked the last few search algorithms that the Master had run. As usual the TARDIS had been set to keep track of one Dr. Susanatrevalar, to plot intercept vectors to worlds where she was stationed. Dar knew that this TARDIS was limited in where it could go, the Council had put limiters on it, and so the Master must know it as well. Yet, he still kept trying. Hoping for something that he had to know was hopeless.

Dar cleared the cache, making certain that no other agent could find those searches. His instinct was to protect his friend. He wasn't quite certain how it had happened, but the Master was his friend. At least three times now he could have killed Darginian, or left him to die and he had refused to. Had he been the monster that legend and rumor painted him, then Dar would have been dead by now.

He still didn't understand it all. He didn't know what had driven the Master mad, or how he managed to fight the madness off time and again, displaying moments of courage, of nobility, of gentleness, that Dar wondered if he was even aware of.

Either rumor was wrong, or something profound had changed inside the Master. Something that Dar suspected had to do with a green-eyed girl who'd stared back at the madman with longing, desire, and something that Darginian still couldn't quite believe.

She looked at the Master with love and love was what he'd returned to her. None of it made any sense to Dar, but he knew what he'd seen.

"Dar?" the Master stumbled into the console room.

"Here," he replied and nodded at his friend.

"I had a nightmare, I think." He was fishing to find out how much Dar knew, but the CIA agent just shrugged.

"After the month we've had, I wouldn't be surprised. I've been having some bloody awful ones myself," he replied, smoothly avoiding answering the implied question. Whatever was going on between the Master and Lady Susanatrevalar, it was intensely private and none of Dar's business. He wasn't about to intrude on it.

"Do you remember the girl who came to the Trans Mat?" the Master asked him and Dar blinked in surprise. In nearly a hundred years, the Master hadn't mentioned her aloud to him.

"Lady Susan," he answered and watched as the other man's eyes went gentle at the sound of her name.

"Yes." One word, but fraught with emotions so deep that Dar was shaken. That he was willing to reveal even so much of himself to Dar was somewhat shocking. There was real trust being built between them and he wasn't sure if that was good or not. He'd already compromised himself so badly with the CIA that he could be executed for all that he had failed to report so far.

"I remember," he allowed some of his compassion to leak into his voice and the sad, dark eyes that looked up at him were filled with understanding.

"You haven't ever asked about her," he pointed out.

"No," he replied and looked down at the floor of the TARDIS. "I have been directly ordered to report all known facts, Master," he informed his friend, who startled at the reminder of who and what Dar was. "I was never told to report surmises, conjecture, or guesses, only proven facts."

"So, as long as something is merest conjecture, then you are not obligated to report it?" the Master asked him, his lips curling up in a smile.

"Precisely," he replied, feeling relieved that the other understood so quickly.

"Then let me tell you a purely hypothetical story," the dark-haired man suggested with a chuckle and Dar nodded.

"As long as it's purely hypothetical, I'd be happy to listen," he replied.

"Imagine a young woman; we'll call her Anna, shall we? Let's say that someone wanted her mind broken, but couldn't find anyone strong enough to break through her formidable defenses. One day, it occurs to the bastards that they could call in a powerful telepath and use him to do the job," he informed Dar, who was feeling a certain degree of trepidation as to how this story was going.

"How might the powerful telepath have felt about that?" he asked rather sharply and the Master gave him a lop-sided smile.

"I suppose that he hated the very thought of it, harming a schoolgirl was probably even beyond what he imagined he was capable of." The sick self-hatred in the Master's voice made Dar wince. "Still, it was do the job or die for the poor fellow, so he would have had to do it." A sudden gleaming smile surprised the CIA agent. "But imagine if Anna turned it all around on him. What if she were so brilliant, so amazing, that instead of being broken, she knocked through the fellow's shields, like they were tissue paper, and invaded him with ease?" Dar blinked in surprise and sudden wonderment. Everything came clear then to him, all of it, and he couldn't help but chuckle.

"Then that girl would be quite extraordinary," he conceded and looked up at his friend with a smile. "Such a girl, even if she's only imaginary, would be well worth whatever it took to get back to her."

"Yes, should such a girl ever exist, she'd be worth the cost," the Master sighed out and for a brief moment his misery was clear in his eyes and then was hidden again behind a wry smile and a shrug. "But, it's just an amusing story. After all, such a girl couldn't possibly exist outside of dreams." With that last rather melancholy statement, the Master withdrew back to bed, leaving Dar with much to think on.

* * *

Susan sat up in her hospital bed and smiled at the nurse. Her regeneration had been very difficult, but it had completed, which was a relief. She looked in the mirror that hovered in the air before her and frowned at the blonde hair, blue eyes, and upturned nose that met her gaze. She'd really liked the green eyes, she'd miss them. She'd never really fancied herself a blond either, she'd really been hoping for ginger, like Great Gran.

Hazy memories tried to catch her attention, but she was still somewhat disoriented and it was so hard to think. She drifted off to sleep.

* * *

"Susan," his voice was there and she opened her eyes and smiled. He'd come to visit her!

"Koschei!" she was happy to see him, which seemed odd to some small part of her brain, but everything was a bit fuzzy just then, so she couldn't figure out why.

"You're blond," he mused, fingering a length of her hair with a proprietary air that she ought to find annoying, but which merely made her mouth go dry with want.

"You're still the same," she noted. "I'm glad you're being careful," she added and he looked at her in surprise.

"I'd have thought you'd _want_ me dead." He was frowning at her and she was shocked by the comment.

"What? Why?"

"So that you could get me out of your head!" he answered as though she were stupid. Her only answer was to sit up and wrap her arms around his neck.

"You're a certifiable madman, but I didn't think you were thick," she grumbled and then kissed him, her mouth ruthlessly attacking his. He groaned and leaned into her, arms holding her so tightly she could barely breathe.

Yes, she thought, this was right; this is what had been missing for the last hundred years of her life. He was pressing her back on the hospital bed, straddling her, hands working his magic on her body and she was ready for him, wanting him more than anything in this universe or any other.

* * *

"Good morning, Susan!" her doctor called out and her eyes flew open to find herself alone in a hospital room, looking up as her chart was checked and her nutrients were adjusted. It was all she could do not to scream at him in frustration.

Another damn dream and she didn't even get to finish it this time!

"Hello, Doctor," she murmured and plastered on a smile, though it probably looked more like a grimace.

* * *

The Master awoke abruptly and groaned aloud. Omega! He hadn't dreamed of her like that in a hundred years and, when he finally did, he had to wake up before he'd even gotten to a fraction of the things he wanted to do to her. Life just wasn't fair.

* * *

Andred grinned up at Susan as she wandered into the barracks area. The best thing about the giant star forts was that the barracks areas were very nice, even if the Navy technically ran the fort, they left the Army chaps alone down here. So they felt free to post rude and suggestive signs explaining what the best uses for a Navy plebe might be. Susan rolled her eyes at one particularly vulgar one and he grinned even more widely.

"Sick bay not keeping you busy enough, my Lady?" he asked her and she gave him a wry smile, twisting a lock of pale blond hair around her finger thoughtfully.

"Well, Colonel, since you don't like me enough to come to sick bay to get your check-up…" she answered with a sly smile and he groaned aloud.

"It's not that I don't like you, my Lady, it's that I hate sick bays!" he protested and she grinned and pulled out a diagnostic wand.

"Then I will give you your check up right here," she retorted, while several other soldiers snickered quietly at his discomfiture. He glared at them and they quickly fled to other duties. Lady Susanatrevalar was the Doctor's family, so unlike the last two doctors on base, he couldn't just ignore her and hide. He'd promised to protect her and he took that oath quite seriously. Unfortunately, it now meant he couldn't throw a chair in her path and run away.

"As you say, my Lady," he replied, giving in as gracefully as he could.

Alarms began to wail and the station shuddered beneath them as something struck it.

"Did you arrange an attack to get out of your check-up?" Susan asked him as they bolted out of the barracks.

"No, my Lady, that I did not!" he called back.

"Direct hit on the bridge, activate auxiliary bridge," the computer announced and Susan went pale beside him.

"I've got to get to the sick bay!" she cried and he grabbed her arm, pointing to the damage map above their heads.

"You can't! It's gone!" She stared at the map and then whipped out her life sensor array, checking for signs.

"There are fewer than thirty life signs on the station, Colonel," she gasped out and he fought off a momentary paralysis. The base had had over two thousand personnel stationed on it.

"Let's get to the auxiliary bridge!" he ordered and they ran.

"Auxiliary Bridge is open to vacuum," the computer announced and they ran faster.

They reached the door and he ripped open the panels throwing the airlock protocols over to manual and slapping the sealant locks into position.

"Auxiliary Bridge is now air tight," the computer confirmed and he pulled the door open.

* * *

Susan stepped in to see carnage. She ran to the nearest still form and began taking life sign readings. Nothing. She went methodically through the room, but they were all dead.

Behind her, Andred was running damage control, darting back and forth between the stations trying to make sure that the rest of the base was air tight.

"Dalek fleet approaching, Dalek fleet approaching," the computer informed them and Susan's blood turned to ice.

"Omega," Andred whispered and when she looked up at him, where he stood, staring down at the tactical display, she saw that his face was bloodless and his eyes were fixed in wide-eyed dismay on the screen.

"Andred?" He looked up at her.

"We need to power up the Delta Wave Generator," he told her and she shivered. It was a last ditch weapon, since it would use most of the available power of the entire base to fire, leaving them without shields. That he suggested it at all, told her everything about how bad things were.

She scrambled to help him and then looked at the graphics. The spreading v-shape of the outgoing wave was shown engulfing the entire huge armada that was bearing down on them, but it also covered the Trinity, the three worlds, really a large planet and two huge moons, that the base orbited.

Billions of people lived on those worlds. People she had gotten to know quite well in the fifteen years she'd been stationed here. She'd spent her shore-leaves down there running a free clinic for the poorer residents. They'd all die along with the Daleks if they fired that wave.

"We can't! Andred, Trinity is right there! They'd be caught in the blast!"

"I know," he answered and kept working.

"Andred!" she cried. "We can't do this!"

"Susan, if we don't launch the Delta Wave, then everyone on this base will die, and then, after that, everyone in this sector will die. Twenty-seven worlds, fifteen space stations, and half the Allied Fleet are lying unprotected and the Dalek fleet is three times the size of the defending forces," he explained patiently, his eyes on hers grave and sad.

"Billions of people," she whispered.

"Who the Daleks will kill in about thirty-seven minutes, regardless, and there are tens of billions out there in the dark who will be next," he told her and she realized she was weeping.

"There has to be another way!" she demanded.

"Incoming missiles!" he shouted. "Shields at maximum!"

Another jolt went through the station and Andred, who wasn't in a sling, was thrown across the room. She unhooked herself and raced after him.

She dropped down beside him and scanned him, finding a collapsed lung and broken ribs, one of which was dangerously near his left heart.

"Don't move; your broken ribs could do some serious internal damage. She grabbed her med kit and opened it up.

"Delta Wave charged and ready for firing." The computer's voice was far too calm for Susan's tastes just then. Andred clutched her hand.

"Susan, you have to press the button!" Andred looked at her and his eyes were filled with compassion.

"I can't do that!" she cried out to him. She was shouting, but couldn't seem to stop herself. "I'm a Doctor! I took an oath to preserve life! I know these people, Andred, I have treated them, played with their children, been a part of their lives," she whispered, seeing in her mind the delicate fronds of Mag-ia, waving a laugh as they swapped stories, the laughing arboreal children who'd climbed her legs, the humans, the Gelph, all of them.

"And you will mourn them, Susan, but you will still do this thing, because there is no other way to save everyone else." She stared at him in horror, wondering how it had come to this. It was a military ship, filled with soldiers, yet she was the one being asked to do this thing.

"If I do this, then what will I be?" she asked him softly. "Because I won't be a doctor anymore. I won't be Susan." His eyes on hers were filled with sorrow for her, but there was no give in his face.

"You'll be the person who saved all those lives," he told her, trying to comfort her, even as his collapsed lung made him gasp and wheeze for air.

Susan stood up and moved to the wrecked controls. She carefully moved the body of the Wave operator out of the seat and sat down. It was a simple control, press a button and wipe out billions of lives forever. Her eyes were filling with tears again, her hearts were breaking, and she looked out at the three worlds sitting, like blue and emerald jewels glittering in the dark, and she pressed the button.

She could feel them dying. She could feel the Delta wave sweeping across the worlds, killing everything it touched and she fell to the floor, hearing their deaths in her mind, and she was screaming with them. She felt the Daleks' fear and their deaths as well and it was too much. After all that she had gone through, after everything she'd survived, this act was the one last thing. The one last thing needed to break her.

Susan shattered, falling into darkness and despair.

* * *

The Master cried out and Darginian turned to see him falling to his knees next to the wave form generator, his hands clutching his head. His expression was one of intense distress and Dar knew that somehow Susan was involved. He grabbed the Master and dragged him into his TARDIS before anyone else could see what was happening.

This bond between the Master and Susan was dangerous; Dar could feel that in his bones. If his superiors figured it out, he suspected that the Master's life expectancy would be about as long as a Mayfly's. He carried the Master into his rooms and lay him on his bed, removing his boots and loosening his collar.

"You'll make someone an excellent wife, Dar," the Master chuckled weakly.

"Sorry, you're not my type, besides, I think you're taken," he grumbled and those wry black eyes watched him with understanding.

"Assuming she survives the damn War," he retorted with a sigh. "She's collapsing, Dar, I can barely feel her." That cool confident voice was suddenly shaky and Dar nodded.

"I'll watch the door." Dar rose and went to make certain that no one would disturb the Master for a while. "You take care of her."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14 –Crawling Back Up

Andred watched Susan fall to her knees, screaming like a soul in torment. Mental Collapse, he realized.

He'd done this to her.

He'd forced her to do something so against her nature that she simply couldn't cope. The guilt, the suffering, had broken her mind. He lay there, unable to move, unable to go to her, and realized that for all her brave front, Susan had been held together by nothing but will and stubbornness. And he'd just destroyed all of that.

"Oh Doctor, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I was supposed to protect her…" he whispered, tears coursing down his face as her screams burned themselves into his brain.

* * *

The Doctor ran into the hospital, his satchel banging on his hip, unshaven, hair lank, dirt and blood still smeared on his jacket, and headed towards her room like a homing pigeon coming to roost.

He could feel Romana behind him, following at an equally breakneck pace, but his mind was consumed by the buzzing static in his head, the blankness where once Susan had resided.

He skidded around a corridor, burst through the door to her room and came to a sudden stop in the doorway, shocked by the sight before him.

Susan, regenerated once more, blond hair cascading down, eyes closed in a face sunken and bruised looking. She looked so slender and frail, her skin so pale milky white that it seemed almost blue tinged by her illness.

"Susan," he choked out and stepped forward finally to reach her. He took her hand in his and felt a jolt of terror go through him as he held it. She was so thin, so fragile, that she seemed almost translucent, as though she were just a ghost, rather than flesh and blood.

Her new face was lovely, he thought absently, like a Raphael Madonna, but she was so still, as though carved from marble. Seeing her on a viewscreen didn't do justice to the beauty that he saw in her, the radiant soul he loved so much. Yet just now, she wasn't radiant at all, she was shadowed and dark, a faded photograph of what she'd once been.

Romana stepped behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder. He leaned his face against her fingers and felt the tears starting to flow.

He hadn't protected her; he'd let her come to this. He did nothing but fail them all, time and again. There was no end to the many ways he could find to hurt the people who loved him best. He was useless. He was just a stupid useless old man. He hung his head in shame and despair.

* * *

She was alone, but it hadn't always been that way. She knew that. She'd had her grandfather, then David and the children. But they were gone now. They'd all left her to die on the floor of her cell, bleeding out her life to save her soul.

She would always be alone now.

"Don't be ridiculous! I'm here, you silly girl!"

There was a wall of ice between her and the world and behind it she was comfortably numb, but that voice, angry, possessive, passionate, mad, it did something to her. It made her feel something other than the icy coldness.

"Stop it! Susan, you're far too strong for this stupidity!"

Susan? Yes. That was her name. Strong? Was she? Somewhere deep inside a little flame of stubborn strength rekindled. She knew that voice that was yelling in her mind. It was her madman, she thought with a touch of euphoria. She wasn't alone.

"Koschei?" she asked with a strange sort of wonderment.

"Finally, woman! I've been shouting for hours!" he snarled back and she could feel the concern under the anger. Her madman had been worried.

"That's sweet," she murmured and felt a wave of disgust coming from him.

"For Omega's sake, Susan! If you're going to turn into a vapid imbecile, this is going to be one hell of a long eternity!" His aggravation seemed somehow endearing in the hazy state of her mind and she chuckled.

"Oh do stop bellyaching, you ridiculous man," she answered and felt him storming off in a huff, though his relief was palpable as well.

Susan felt hands on her, felt movement, conversation, but she couldn't seem to focus on any of it. She was still drifting, unanchored, floating quietly, but the wall of ice was gone and she knew that eventually she would have to wake.

However, that could wait for a while, for now, she just wanted to sleep.

* * *

The Master came back to himself. Sweat poured off of him and he was exhausted from the effort of trying to get through to Susan.

She'd finally broken, after everything they had done to her. She'd stayed strong for a hundred and fifty years, able to withstand all the agony and suffering those bastards had put her through, but killing three paltry little worlds had done her in. Her mind had been filled with the screams of the dying and his first job had been to dampen that memory for her. He didn't understand why she cared so much for such things. She'd saved Time Lords, hell, she'd saved him, from the incoming Dalek ships.

"Master?" Dar's voice reminded him that he needed to get himself back under control.

"I'm fine," he answered.

"She's okay?"

"She'll be fine eventually. I don't understand, Dar, explain something to me," he grumbled.

"Another fairy story?" Dar asked with a whimsical tone and the Master barked a laugh.

"Yes, exactly. Tell me a story about why someone could survive everything done to them, no matter how horrible, and then fall apart just because they destroyed a few billion people?" he asked and Dar blinked at him in surprise.

"Well, most sane people dislike killing others," Dar pointed out with a wry smile and the Master stuck his tongue out at him, making him laugh. "Look, this Anna girl is a Doctor, right?" the Master nodded. "Well, Doctors go into medicine because they want to save lives, prevent death, and help people. It's part of their identity, how they see themselves."

"The man who makes people better," the Master snarled. "He's infected her with his idealistic nonsense."

Dar watched him for a long time and he could see the CIA agent struggling for words.

"I'm not the best person to discuss morality with you, Master," he finally admitted. "You and I are more alike than not. I'm not a nice person, or even a very good one. My job it to kill people, interrogate prisoners, and spy, so morally, I'm a bit iffy." The last was said with a slightly self-mocking smile. It hadn't really occurred to him to think about Dar like that. He was just Dar, the only person who'd ever treated him like a person, rather than a rabid animal.

"The nice people are often the cruelest, Dar," the Master told him. "They're the ones who smile to your face and then stab you in the back. They tell you they care and then don't even stretch out a hand to save you when you're dying." He still remembered burning to death in that volcano while the Doctor watched and did nothing. He hadn't ever really forgiven him for that.

"I think you should read some things, Master," Dar sighed out and handed his notepad to him. "Look under 'Anna'," he suggested and the Master flipped through and found all the reports, letters, and electronic files for Susan all neatly tabbed. He looked up at Dar in surprise.

"You've been checking up on her?" he asked.

"I needed to know if she was a danger to you," he muttered, looking uneasy. "If she was ever taken in for questioning, you might have needed to 'disappear'." Dar looked as though he hated admitting it and the Master understood why. Dar was essentially telling him that he'd been working out plans to protect the Master in case Susan ever betrayed him.

"When did you start monitoring her?" he asked.

"Ever since that time on the Cruciform. Neither of you could hide your reaction to each other. I figured out pretty quickly what must be going on." Dar was as blank faced as the Master had ever seen him and the shock of Dar's confession left him speechless.

"You've been aware of this for one hundred thirty years?" the Master finally choked out. "You've been watching and planning all this time and you said nothing?"

"I had no proof and I don't want any!" Dar insisted, his face twisted in a sudden agony. The Master slumped on the bed, hands scrubbing his face. "She's never said anything to anyone, you know. Not one word of it has ever shown up in any report. She's kept the secret faithfully." With that parting comment, the CIA agent stomped out of the room, leaving the Master with a notebook filled with every scrap of information about Susanatrevalar.

Hating himself and his stupid obsession with the girl, the Master devoured the information, his face gone soft and gentle as he read.

* * *

Andred opened his eyes and saw Leela, curled in a cot beside his hospital bed. Her dark hair was tangled, her face drawn and tired, her uniform creased, but she was more beautiful to him than were she dressed in the finest of silks.

"Leela," he murmured. He hadn't checked to see if she was alive on the Station. He couldn't. If she'd been dead, he would have fallen apart, if he'd known she was alive, he'd have had to go to her. He'd kept himself from even thinking about her until he'd done his duty.

Her eyes opened, blue as sapphires, deep and brilliant as a galaxy.

"Andred!" she cried and rose to wrap him up gently in her arms. He ached, but he was healing, and she was the best medicine of all.

* * *

The Doctor was woken by a soft murmur and he looked up to see Susan shifting in her bed. She smiled in her sleep, lips curling up, and he held himself still, watching her, hoping.

Her eyes opened slowly and she looked around the room until she saw him.

"Grandfather?" she whispered and he launched himself at her, pulling her into his arms, holding her so tightly to him that she squeaked in surprise.

"Oh Susan!" he sobbed, still clutching her to him.

"Grandfather, oxygen, please!" she gasped out and he relaxed his hold on her a bit. Their arms were still around each other though, neither one willing to let go completely.

"Are you alright?" he asked softly, searching her eyes for answers and she looked up at him with an expression of sorrow, of regret, and of shame so profound, that he gasped.

"No, I'm not. Too many innocent people died and I couldn't stop it, I couldn't find another way," she whispered. "You told me that there is always another way and I couldn't find it!" she burst into tears and he held her, rocking her gently, stroking her hair.

"Come now, Susan, you of all people know what a liar I am," he scolded her with a tender smile. "Sometimes, there isn't another way." She sobbed brokenly and he just stayed there, holding her, giving her what comfort he could.

* * *

The Master was back on the Cruciform, his problem child. Every time he left, it seemed like some other section would break down and he'd be sent to repair it. He was pacing back and forth, like a caged lion waiting for the opportunity to rend apart his captors.

He could feel the soft hum in his mind that was Susan, but it was so damn dim now. Omega, when he'd first touched her mind, it had been like a blazing sun, but this last time, it had barely been like scattered starlight. She was dimming. The longer this damn war went on, the fainter her light became.

He'd read through her files and been torn between pride and disgust. Everywhere she went she made things better. Terrible duty stations, places where soldiers knew they'd get little to no medical help, were turned into efficient hospitals where the death rates were cut in half, or quartered. She left a trail of healed patients, well trained nurses, clean orderly medical facilities, and commanding officers who sang her praises. All very well, of course, but she was also followed by reports that she didn't take good enough care of herself, that she worked herself to exhaustion, that she was often the only well trained medical officer on some of these stations. She obviously cared far too much about these lower life forms.

If she were by his side, he'd soon cure her of that (or she'd cure him, he always feels better after she's been in his head). He'd keep her from harm though, unlike the Doctor, he'd protect her properly, not risk her like this. Twice now he'd had to drag her back from the brink; it was obvious the girl had no sense of self-preservation whatsoever.

He was burning up thinking about her, about the sleepy sweetness of her mind when she'd realized it was him. She had displayed no fear of him, no antagonism. Did he dare to hope that she didn't hate him? She'd been half out of her mind, so perhaps it meant nothing.

"Oh do stop bellyaching, you ridiculous man." The words lingered in his mind, not so much for their content, but for the gentle amusement in her mental voice. She'd never reacted negatively to his mental touch, he realized. What did it mean?

He closed his eyes and reached out to her. Far away somewhere he caught the edge of her mind. She was asleep, her thoughts blurred with exhaustion and stress. He reached farther, wanting something, but not sure quite what, and found the scattered star field of her soul. It was brighter, just a bit, and he cupped a bit of that light in his fingers, giving it some of his own strength. It glowed brighter and he had the sudden feeling that she was somehow aware of him.

"Koschei?" the thought was in his head, a gentle sighing like the breeze in the trees, nearly a kiss, it seemed to him. "Don't do this, it's not safe," she chided and then she was gone, shut off from him and he frowned. Not safe? What the hell did she mean by that?

He forced his attention back to the phase array generator and swore venomously. It had taken six months to restructure the whole line of generators and this was the last one he had to finish. He bent to the task while trying to understand what it all meant. Did she hate him? Did she want him? Was he just something she would need later to fulfill that Vision? He didn't know. Why wasn't it safe and for whom? He had so damn many questions and so few answers.

"When you're done here, Master, there is a Dalek outpost that needs removing," Darginian announced as he stepped into the room. The Master looked up at him sourly. "What's wrong with you? I thought you'd enjoy the chance to get out of here and get out into the fresh air again." The wry comment was delivered with Dar's usual dry sense of humor.

"It's getting dull, Darginian," he admitted. "This stupid war is getting far too old."

"After one hundred fifty years of it, I should think so!" Darginian muttered a weary reply. "I'm ready for this whole mess to be over."

"Don't wish for that too hard Dar, you might not like the results," he warned the younger man with a raised eyebrow.

"You think we're going to lose?" the CIA agent asked with a small frown.

"The odds aren't in our favor," he replied, shaking his head. "We can't clone two million soldiers and have them ready for combat within a month. We have to hold the worlds we take, while they just wipe out all life on theirs and keep moving. Our technology is about even, we don't have a single weapon that is superior to what they have, and we can't fight them on the same level, the other disadvantages are too great." He shook his head again. "We might hold out another fifty years, Darginian, but after that, it will be all over. Gallifrey will fall."

"You've told this to the High Council?"

"Several times, but they won't listen to me. Well, I think the Lady Professor heard me, but then she was always far more intelligent than the rest of them," he conceded.

Darginian was leaning against the door jamb, eyes serious.

"Why haven't you just left, then?" he asked and the Master grimaced.

"You know that my TARDIS will only go to the pre-programmed destinations that the High Council has set for it."

"Which you could probably deal with fairly easily, what's the real reason?"

"Because the Lord President wired me up with control mechanisms throughout my nervous system; I do anything he doesn't like and I'm dead."

Darginian frowned.

"That wasn't part of your profile," he muttered and started pacing. "That's not very smart of them," he added, surprising the Master again.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, if I'd been in charge of the original operation, I'd have given you freedom to do what you wanted and then watched from a distance. The minute you fled from the scene, I'd have known what the tactical situation was and acted accordingly."

"I'd have been your 'canary in a coal mine'?" he asked, amused again by the way the other man's mind worked.

"Excellent analogy, Master," Darginian replied with an ironic little bow. "Honestly, as brilliant as you are and you are brilliant, when you get bored you're as dangerous to us as you are to the Daleks. I don't understand why they don't keep you better occupied."

"Because the only thing they have, that I actually want, is the one thing that they will never give me," he answered and his eyes blazed with the frustration he'd controlled so ruthlessly and for so very long.

"Is it something that they might give you in exchange for something else?" Darginian asked, his face perplexed, and the Master's laugh was bitter.

"Do you think the High Council would actually give her to me, Darginian, would they ever hand over that girl to me? Would they give _me_ such a precious thing?" his voice had dropped low and his hands were clenching at his sides, as his mind was conjuring up the many things he wanted to do to her, with her, and the agent went still, eyes watching him carefully.

"No, I don't think they would," he admitted and the Master sighed out, forcing himself to relax. "Not that one."

"Nor should they," he conceded. "I'm not safe to be around." He might lose his temper and hurt her, he knew, even if it would hurt himself. He realized suddenly that as much as he needed her, and oh how he needed her, she was far better off away from him. He'd only destroy her, like he did everything, and then he'd be truly lost.

"That might be," Dar mused. "But, of far more concern to the Council, is that the Lady Professor would throw such a fit that they would lose the entire Prydonian Chapter's support for the War. Their majority makes them a formidable voting block and the Council could never risk alienating all of them." It was a political angle that the Master hadn't considered.

"True. Though it didn't stop Rassilon from sticking her in the Tower to be tortured by those bastards," the Master pointed out.

"All done according to law and tradition, Master," Dar reminded him. "Even there they released her after a while, when it became obvious that she wasn't going to become a Visionary. As tradition demands."

"Yes, Rassilon has been very careful to stay within the law at all times, hasn't he," the Master conceded.

"What bothers me, Master, is that all the files I've gathered, they were also sent to Rassilon. He's been following her very closely and ever duty station she's been sent to has been on direct order from him. He's made certain that the two of you are never near each other, but he's also sent her to every miserable, piss-poor excuse of a backwater hellhole he could find. It's like he's trying to break her spirit for some reason." Dar was pacing now, hands behind his back and the Master wondered if he even realized that he'd forgotten to couch all the terms as being part of a 'fairy story'.

Dar's theory also disturbed him a great deal. Was Rassilon pressuring her? Why?

He suddenly recalled the conversation they'd had after the Tower incident. He thought Susan was the Arkytior. Rassilon had said that she was supposed to be the vengeful goddess reborn. A less likely candidate than Susan he could hardly imagine, yet, she'd beaten him soundly in their mental battle. She'd had the Visions when they had been locked together in each other's minds, which had been real enough. Was Rassilon trying to turn her into the Arkytior? But why?

Power, of course, he sighed to himself. He pondered it for a moment for himself. What could he do with the power of the Arkytior? Burn, most likely. The legends were very clear that she was a pure destructive force capable of devastating galaxies. The Master had learned a valuable lesson at Logopolis, which was not to mess with any form of power until you'd figured out where the off switch was and what would happen when you flipped it.

"He must want something from her," the Master suggested and Dar nodded.

"I only wish I knew what," he grumbled and the Master shrugged. He didn't know that she was really the Arkytior and honestly, he didn't like the idea at all. She was Susan, his Susan, and he just wanted her, the woman, and not some ancient power. Because, if she really was some reborn goddess, then she would be kept forever out of his reach and that he simply could not accept.

"We'll figure it out eventually," the Master replied finally and grinned at Dar, his friend and ally.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15 – Brilliant at Planning

Susan leaned over her Great Gran's shoulder and frowned. Equations were zipping by so rapidly that she could barely grasp the basic outlines of what the Lady Professor was doing.

"I have to work out trajectories through multiple dimensions or the ships will never escape the Void and reach their proper destinations," she explained to Susan who nodded, still feeling far out of her depth. "Shouldn't you finish the work on the Chameleon Arch Bio Data?"

"Hmm? Oh, I finished that lot hours ago," she answered absently, missing the startled look of appraisal on the older woman's face.

"Did you?"

"Yeah, it was dead easy, not like all this," she responded, trying to follow the convoluted equations and failing.

"Dead easy?" her Great Gran chuckled and shook her head. "Well, I'm glad that you find it so, dear."

"How soon do we need to leave?" she asked next.

"We'll need to go soon; the way that Time is getting knotted is growing worse with each passing day. Within two months or so, Time will become so tangled that it will lock up, even without the High Council's intervention, and there will be no way out." Susan shivered at her words. To be trapped in Time with the Dalek Fleet, unable to escape, was a terrifying thought.

"Then the sooner the better," Susan answered.

"Yes." There was a long silence while the equations were worked out in the staccato rhythm of the Lady Professor's typing. "Susan, I have already done a great deal to prepare the way for you all to restore our people in a new universe, but I can't tell you what I've done."

"Why not?"

"Well, should Rassilon get into your head, he'd know too much of our plans. Also, I've erased my own memories of what I've done. I left myself a checklist, so I know what I still have to do, but I can't recall what I've actually done."

Susan stared, dumbfounded, at her Great Gran, her mouth slightly open, as she tried to figure out a response to that.

"Okay Great Gran," she finally answered, not sure what else she could say.

* * *

The Master stared at the monitor in satisfaction. It had taken him far too long, but he'd finally removed the 'leash' that Rassilon had placed on him. He was bleeding, his skin scored in a dozen places from where he slashed himself open to pull the physical cords from inside of himself.

He probably hadn't needed to, not after he'd disarmed them, but he hated the idea of these things being in his body. He wanted to be free of them, he wanted there to be nothing Rassilon had touched anywhere near him.

Now all he had to do was figure out how to unlock his TARDIS.

He stood in its dim interior, smiling the smile of a predator that's just scented his prey.

* * *

The Doctor stood at the TARDIS controls, staring at the equations as they spooled by and his hearts contracted in fear.

"Two months at best," Romana murmured behind him. "Then Time will lock."

"Yes."

"I've been recalled to Gallifrey, Doctor," she told him as she leaned against him, arms slipping about his waist. "The High Council requires my reports."

"I don't want you to go," he answered softly. "It's not safe. The bombing…"

"I know."

"Romana, you could just go away, I could drop you someplace…"

"They would find me, Doctor. That's the problem with a telepathic race; they can always find you, eventually."

"You'd only have to hide for two months," he spat out, bitterness in his hearts. "After that there won't be anyone to come looking for you."

"We might win, you know, stranger things have happened," she teased, her new black hair draping across his back, and he could feel the tears pricking the corners of his eyes.

"Yes, of course. We might win," he answered, but his voice was as bleak as his thoughts were.

Watching her walk out of the TARDIS and towards the Citadel was one of the hardest things he'd ever done.

But it wasn't the hardest thing of all.

That was yet to come.

* * *

Deep inside the Great Battle TARDIS, Susan stared at the time lines, watching as they stopped coiling and twisting and suddenly seemed to freeze. The Sickbay looked as though light and color had been drained out of it. Her patients began to babble and cry out, in surprise and in fear. She moved quickly to soothe them all; soldiers, techs, civilian contractors, the Star Hammer's sick bay cared for them all.

Time Lock.

She'd never seen it before. It hadn't happened in millions of years, not since the times of legends and fables. She'd hoped never to see it. Her time sense was blinded, she felt as though she was flailing in the darkness. The Battle TARDIS moaned beneath her, the decks creaking in the sudden strain. She heard the crew running, shouting, the captain's voice over the speakers.

"Attention all Crew, Time Lock is initiated, repeat Time Lock is initiated, prepare for real space travel conversion!" She shivered hearing that, the Vortex was closed to them now, only certain routes might remain open, but they were trapped now in real space. With the Daleks.

She ran to the communication panel and opened a contact to her grandfather.

Long minutes passed with no answer and she breathed out in relief. He was outside the Time Lock, otherwise he would have answered. The Time differential would make synching communications complicated; he might not answer for days as he tried to work out a method. So that part of the prophecy was taken care of. Now somehow, the Master and she had to make it out as well, which might very well be impossible.

Her inbox had three messages, she scanned through them in sudden hope, but not one of them was from him. With a feeling of resignation, she listened to the messages and then deleted them.

The messages were each from three different men, all high ranking Time Lords, hoping to meet with her, for dinner, tea, or a walk, perhaps. She frowned. The latest three attempts by Rassilon to marry her off, she guessed, none of which were remotely appealing to her. In the last fifty years she must have had a dozen or more persistent suitors stalking her through her daily life. If it hadn't been so annoying, it would have been funny. The "Ape-lover" was suddenly a hot marital commodity.

She blew her breath out and forced herself to be calm. Rassilon couldn't move against her family without losing support in the council. To force a bonding was a serious offense, it was the rape of a sentient mind, and no crime had greater penalties.

But she'd planned on being on the other side of the Time Lock when he finally grew desperate enough to try it anyway. Now, she was trapped in here, with an increasingly desperate megalomaniac.

What was with her luck? She was caught between two psychopaths, and while the Master was, oddly enough, the lesser of two evils, he certainly wasn't a catch either. Why couldn't she have ended up with at least one sane man in her immediate circle. She certainly couldn't consider her Grandfather to be sane, because even if he wasn't psychotic, he was certainly not all there sometimes. She found her lips stretching into a fond smile thinking of him. Well, maybe it was her; maybe she was a touch crazy herself.

"Susan?" Andred, with Leela on his heels came charging into the sick bay.

"Are you both alright?" she asked, thinking they were coming in for treatment.

"The ship is being recalled to Gallifrey, you are being summoned to the High Council!" Leela blurted and Susan's face drained of color.

"God help me," she whispered.

* * *

The Cruciform was falling. The Dalek Emperor was coming. Terror seized the Master and deep in his mind the urge to flee was growing. He would die here and that couldn't be allowed. He had a great destiny, a purpose that must be achieved. He couldn't die amongst the sheep!

He'd planned for this eventuality, he had what he needed to break the Time Lock and escape, but he'd always planned to have Susan with him when he left. Even if he'd had to knock her out and carry her away, he had to take her with him. He couldn't leave her to die here, she belonged to him. Dar was coming with him too, the three of them, they would escape together.

His vision blurred and the drumming suddenly was so much louder, it felt like his head would explode and then, suddenly, he realized that he was in his TARDIS.

No, wait! This wasn't right! Dar! Susan! He had to go get them! His head hurt so badly that he could hardly stand it. He fell forward and the ship took off. The TARDIS core he'd specially modified was ejected and as it imploded, it ripped at time, pulling open a gap that allowed the Master's TARDIS to exit on its preprogrammed path.

* * *

Susan was marched into the High Council room by a familiar burly CIA agent. He stood at her elbow and she guessed he was there to keep her from escaping. She wondered why he was always the one who showed up, just when she most wanted to be somewhere else. She realized that he was the one who'd been standing behind the Master on that Trans Mat so long ago as well. Her resentment towards him ratcheted up higher.

Rassilon turned a benignly smiling face on her, but the cold fear in her gut was not eased by that.

"My Lady Susanatrevalar, the High Council wishes to speak with you," he announced and Councilor Flavia frowned.

"Lady Susan, it has been indicated to us that you have refused offers of marriage from quite a number of rather impressive suitors."

"I do not choose to marry at this time," she told them. "Though I fail to see why this is of import to the High Council. We are trapped in a Time Lock and you are worrying about my marital state? Is such trivia truly worth your consideration?"

"It is when we have reason to believe that you are the Arkytior," Councilor Flavia informed her and she could feel the Agent beside her stiffen in sudden agitation, an anxiety that matched her own.

"This has been told to me for weary centuries, yet no proof of it has ever been offered. I have displayed none of the signs, so I fail to see why this belief remains," she answered back in a tone that she hoped displayed none of her terror.

The Visionary entered then, leaning on her staff, muttering, her face painted in swirls of prophecy and settled into the empty chair at the end. Susan was stunned, for it was unheard of for a member of the Tower to come to the Council, their participation in government had been banned for millennia.

"Arkytior she is, she is, though she hides from it, she does," the Visionary mumbled and Susan froze, while the Council all turned to examine her.

"Then we shall see her bound for her safety and ours," Rassilon announced.

"You can't do that! It's rape!" she cried out. "I will not submit to such a monstrous thing!"

The High Council blanched at her words and several turned away, shame on their faces.

"Too late, too late, she is bound already, bound into madness and despair, bound into the sound of drums," the Visionary chortled.

"What does she mean?" Councilor Gomer demanded.

Rassilon turned and stared at Susan, his eyes blazing in fury and he rose, stepping towards her. She shrank back from him, but the Agent held her arm, not letting her flee.

"My Lady, will you explain to the Council what is meant by the Visionary's words?" he demanded and she could see that he would rip the knowledge from her mind if she did not speak.

"It was you who let it come to pass," she told him, bitterly. "You wanted my mind broken open, so you sent the Master in to pull my soul apart." She laughed, a sound that made the agent flinch beside her. "Instead, I went into him to pull him apart, to save myself." She shook her head in memory of her folly. "I Saw him and he Saw me," she finished, her voice dropping nearly to a whisper. She looked up into the raging anger of Rassilon and straightened her spine. "You sent him after me, so live with the consequences of it!"

He raised a hand as though to strike her and then, seeming to realize where he was, he lowered it again.

"Nearly two hundred years you have kept this from us? You have been bound to him and you said nothing?" he demanded. "Why?"

"If I had told you, you'd have killed him," she answered, she knew that he was endangered by this revelation, but she didn't know how to get a warning to him. She felt the agent twitch again beside her and wondered at it. "It was no more his fault than it was mine, why should he die for following your orders?" The agent, brown eyes surprised, stared at her. He must think her mad to protect the Master, but she didn't care.

"He is of no worth! His life is nothing! He's a psychopath, a mad dog!"

"He's a far better man than you are, my Lord President!" she spat out at him and the fury in his eyes was a vast terrifying thing. "He never set out to rape me for his own benefit!"

"Your value to us is inestimable, you could have been our salvation!" he screamed.

"Or your destruction," she retorted. "I know the old legends! The Arkytior is an amoral creature, a thing of rage and fire, a creature that lives to destroy, that cannot discern between enemy and friend! You would ask me to become something that would obliterate you! Are you so far gone in your fears that you would unleash such a hell upon yourselves?" She turned, imploring the High Council to see sense, to recognize reason, and they stared back at her, but all she could see was their terror of death, their fear of the coming end.

"We will have the Master killed, and then you will be bound to a Time Lord of my choosing, my Lady," Rassilon informed her and she felt an incandescent fury.

"You leave him alone!" She was struggling against the Agent's grip, but he held her tightly and then cleared his throat.

"My Lord President, the thing is; I had come before you to inform you that My Lord Master has disappeared." She stilled and turned to look up into the placid face of the agent with sudden hope.

"Disappeared? Impossible!" Rassilon bit out and then began typing away at a panel on his desk. "He's escaped, deactivated his leash, and hidden himself," he whispered in disbelief and Susan smiled, joy bubbling up inside of her. He'd escaped. If they could both make it to the other side of the Time Lock, then the universe could be saved as well.

All was not yet lost.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N - This chapter has some trigger warnings for abuse and rape. Skip the bits between Susan and Rassilon, if you are sensitive to these sorts of things. I promise that I understand and won't be offended.

Chapter 16 – Gallifrey Falling

Susan sat in her room and looked out at the burning city below her. The bombs fell nearly every day now. The Dalek fleet was growing closer.

She however, knew little about the course of the War. She was a prisoner of the High Council. While they searched for the Master, she was left in solitary confinement, awaiting his capture, or death. If they caught him, if they killed him, then they would bring some stranger to her and force their way into her mind, force her into a binding, eternal link with someone whose sole aim would be to control her power.

They'd burn her out to achieve their goals. She'd be dead, but her body would be walking around, reduced to a mere housing for an ancient power of madness and destruction.

"That was a pleasant thought," she grumbled to herself. "Very cheery, Susan." She was praying that the Master was at his most brilliant, that he had found a place to hide that even they couldn't find him. Both of their lives depended on it.

The door opened and she gathered herself for the daily torture.

Rassilon swept into the room; his face hard and cold, his eyes like chips of glass.

She breathed out in relief. She dreaded the day he came in happy, for she would know then that Koschei was dead.

"Your Highness," he snarled, mocking her and she bowed her head, Princess of the Blood to Lord President. If this was today's game, she would play it with dignity and grace. He pulled a whip from beneath his robes and she made herself freeze inside. She would feel nothing and that would keep her from crying, or begging. Whatever happened, she would face it with courage.

* * *

She lay on the floor, bleeding and cold. She felt nothing, cared about nothing. She killed her feelings, her thoughts, became cold clay to keep herself safe from him.

He rolled her over and snarled.

"See for me, Seeress! Find him! You are bound to him! You must know where he is!" She gave him nothing; no reaction and he pulled his robes off, stripping in front of her. She closed her eyes, retreating farther into her mind.

When he pushed inside of her, a brutal invasion that mocked all that she'd had with her husband, she winced and then berated herself for her reaction.

"I can continue with this as often as is required, girl! You can lie under me for weeks, as I brutalize every part of you. Tell me where he is!"

She opened her eyes and saw the excitement and pleasure in his face. He was enjoying this, reveling in his power over her, in his ability to humble her, knowing her to be helpless to fight him. He was panting and sweating, the pain inside of her mixing with her body's reactions to the act itself.

"Never."

As horrific as it was, the pain was better than feeling any sort of enjoyment. He knew that, forcing her to feel everything, his mind inside of hers, stimulating her pleasure centers, making her feel ashamed of her body's response.

"Admit it, you like it, don't you?" he mocked her and she closed her eyes again, trying to force him out of her mind.

As guilty as she had felt about the dreams she'd had of the Master, this was so much worse. There could be no question of consent, no desire to surrender. She fought his mind tooth and nail, even knowing it was ultimately futile. She was crying now, tears pouring down her face.

She fought against the urge to reach for Koschei, to beg for his help, to do so would compromise him completely. Rassilon could follow that trail back to him; find him wherever he was hiding. So, she wept, bled, and fought, alone against the most powerful Time Lord in history, on the floor of her prison.

When he finally left, she was as close to broken as she had ever been. Not since she'd had to destroy Trinity had she been so lost, so devastated. She cried for a long time, before rising, going into the shower and scrubbing herself raw.

Then she went to her medic's satchel and pulled out her equipment. With meticulous care she healed every cut, scratch, bruise, and bite mite mark.

She only wished that she could heal her mind as easily.

* * *

The Master was in trouble. The blast from ripping open the lock had brought the Dalek Emperor through with him and the ship had fired on him as he tried to flee. His TARDIS wouldn't last much longer and he had so much to do.

He had to get himself through the Chameleon Arch, and then take himself somewhere the Time Lords would never find him. He hesitated though.

What if he never got back to her?

"To hell with her!" he shouted at the empty console room. Two hundred years of wanting, of needing, of being denied again and again, he needed to be done with this! It was obvious that she didn't want him! She hated him and for good reason! She should hate him! She could never have felt any of the terrible hunger that raged through him, or she'd have tried to find him, to reach him.

His mind returned to her standing, mouth opening to speak, as he was whisked away from her, but he shook his head in denial. That had been her making certain he was gone, he mustn't twist it in his mind into some sort of hope.

He recalled her gentle sweetness when their minds had touched, her laughing joy when he'd gone in to bring her back to life. Surely that had meant something. The Vision haunted him; they'd all die if he didn't get her out of there.

The Daleks were firing on him, there was no way he'd survive going back in there.

The Doctor. Yes. The Doctor would save her. He loved her, he'd never let her die in there. He was that sort of person.

The Master would become human, forget her, and when he woke he'd go find her! Yes. Or maybe he'd be free. Maybe he'd wake up and he'd finally be completely free of her, of Gallifrey, of all of them. Either way, he'd have won.

He jammed the Arch on his head and smiled.

Things were finally working out for him.

* * *

"My Lady Susanatrevalar," a stranger's voice spoke and her eyes flew open in sudden hope. Another dream? Was it him? She blinked up into the face of the CIA agent from before. It was interesting how they kept meeting like this, she thought with a touch of hysteria.

"Agent…" she realized she couldn't remember his name.

"Captain Darginian, my Lady," he reminded her and then handed over her robes. "Come quickly please." Her mouth went dry with fear.

"Please tell me that they haven't caught him!" she begged and his eyes on hers were searching.

"No my Lady, he's not been caught," he answered and she slumped in relief. "Please, my Lady, we have very little time." She caught the urgency in his voice and rose, pulling the robes on over her night rail.

"What is it?"

"Please my Lady, the Lady Professor requests your attendance." She was gaping at him in confusion, but following after him regardless.

"I'm a prisoner," she pointed out.

"I'm your guard, my Lady, if I am with you, then technically you still are," he replied and she caught the gleam of amusement in his eyes. She smiled at him and nodded.

"Quite true, Captain, quite true."

She slipped on her shoes and followed him through the dark corridors. The Citadel was blacked out for night, all generators shut down to keep the Daleks from being able to pinpoint targets. The Great Dome above them still arched protectively, but everyone knew that it was just a matter of time.

Darginian led her through the twisted maze, keeping to little used corridors until they reached a single ancient Trans Mat.

"If we use this, they will quickly trace us, Captain," she pointed out and he nodded. Flipping back his cloak revealed a d-mat gun at his hip.

"Yes, my Lady, I am well aware," he informed her and she fell silent.

The minor disorientation of travel passed quickly and she watched him methodically destroying the machinery.

"I will assume that you have some plan, Captain?"

"The Lady Professor is the one with the plan. I am just following her orders." He finished what he was doing and then, still kneeling at the controls, looked up at her with an earnest expression. "He never stopped wanting to get back to you, my Lady." She felt her hearts skipping a few beats and then she nodded, tears in her eyes.

"I would have done anything to reach him, Captain, but if Rassilon had ever even guessed…" she whispered and it was his turn to nod his understanding.

He rose and waved her forward and together they ran down the dim corridors.

"He's quite mad though, not a safe fellow," he added and she shot him a wry smile.

"I've been in his head, Captain, I am quite well aware," she shot back with some asperity. "There's a lot more in there than just the insanity, though." She tried to find words and then just shrugged. "At the very core of him, he's utterly beautiful."

"Yes, my Lady, I can see that," he replied and she beamed up at him, finally having found someone who could understand why she'd protect Koschei, why she'd want to find him, to be with him, despite the madness, despite the vicious hurt done to him.

"If I could just get to him, I could repair much of the damage, bring him back to himself." She so desperately longed to reach him, to pull the bulk of those terrible black cords from his mind, to free him from the bondage Rassilon had bound him into.

"I'm sorry, my Lady, but he's blown a hole in the Time Lock and escaped." She stumbled, falling to her knees in shock. He grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. "Sorry, didn't mean to be so blunt." She shook her head.

He was gone. He'd left without her and the betrayal of that was so terrible it was as though a yawning chasm had opened beneath her. She shook her head. No. Darginian said he'd never stopped trying to get to her. If he had left, if he'd saved himself, then it was that the commands laid into him by the High Council had overridden his will.

A second Trans Mat was stepped thorough and the two of them were now in her family's light flyer hanger.

It was filled with Void ships and as she watched, one of them vanished.

"Captain Darginian, Susan, thank Omega!" her Great Gran announced. "Your young man has opened a way for us out of the Time Lock." Only the Lady Professor, Susan thought to herself, would call the Master her "young man", as though it were a perfectly ordinary courtship.

She hugged the elder lady briefly and then went to where Romana was helping Leela get the last few ships loaded.

Another ship blinked out of existence, and another, until only four remained.

"But the Doctor!" Romana protested, her raven black hair hanging around her face in sleep tousled waves. We've switched, Susan mused, I used to be black haired, now I'm a blond.

"He is already outside the Lock, he will be safe, Romana, and we don't have time!" Great Gran scolded and shoved her towards the Chameleon Arch with little ceremony.

Romana's screams were frightening and Susan turned to watch Leela, as she dragged the float gurney with her unconscious husband's cryo-coffin on it, into the Void ship, to take her mind off of what she would soon be going through. She waved goodbye and Leela nodded grimly at her, face filled with purpose and worry.

Darginian shouted and Susan saw the guards coming from the house interior. They must have direct transferred from the Citadel. She ran forwards, grabbing at the door controls, trying to shut them out before they reached the launch bay.

She had to give Great Gran time to finish with Romana.

Darginian hauled on the door, trying to hurry it along, and then a sudden pain screamed through her left side, just before they got the door sealed, the beam of the guard's weapon burning along her body.

"My Lady!" Darginian shouted and caught her as she fell. Golden light was filling up her vision and she swore fiercely.

"Not now!" she urged, but it was too late. Her mind was filled with rage and fury at the bad timing. She'd delay the whole thing now! A red haze was rising in her mind, as Darginian hoisted her in his arms and dropped her onto a spare pallet, his face creased in concern.

Great Gran shot her a worried glance and then quickly helped Romana into her cryo- coffin and then loaded her on board her ship and launched it. Andred and Leela were already gone, Susan noted. It was just her, Darginian, and Great Gran now.

"Susan, this is going to be difficult for you and I'm so sorry." The words were meaningless as Susan realized that this regeneration had barely lasted her ninety-eight years, which was quite disheartening.

She could feel the regeneration just starting to settle when the Chameleon Arch was clamped onto her head. Her eyes flew open in alarm. Too soon! The regeneration process needed time to fully complete before the Arch was used! This could really kill her!

"Lady Professor!" Darginian cried in alarm.

"Great Gran!" she choked out and the Lady Professor lowered her head in sorrow.

"There is no more time! We must go now, or never," was her answer and then the agony began.

* * *

Near the End of Everything

Professor Yana was startled from a daydream and looked down to where his hand had been idly sketching. A woman's face had emerged from the scribbles, a face full of laughter, a face full of strength. He stared at it, baffled. All of his life, he'd dreamed of this same woman, sometimes she was blond haired and blue eyed, sometimes her hair was chocolate brown and her eyes were emeralds, but no matter what she looked like, in every dream he'd burned for her.

During his waking hours no woman could hold his interest for even a few moments, he just couldn't bring himself to care that much. The few experiences he'd had as a young man had convinced him that there was simply something wrong with him. No matter how good it was in the moment, he was left feeling hollow, as though he was starving, but no food was ever able to fill him up.

"Chan Professor Dahl?" his assistant called his attention back to his work and he crumpled up the paper and tossed it away. He was a stupid old man to be dreaming of a lover's arms at his age. He shook his head and went back to work; there were so many lives depending on him.

* * *

2006 MTL/2009PWTL

Susan Campbell stepped into the offices of HC Clements for her first day of work and looked around with a nervous, perplexed expression. This was the third temp job she'd had in two months, and she still felt lost. She never seemed to feel at home anywhere, though.

"Hello! You must be the new girl, I'm Donna Noble!" a cheery ginger bounced up to her and extended a hand, her voice loud, and her walk full of energy and vigor. "And you're a ginger too! Finally! I'm not alone anymore!" The other woman's smile was broad and infectious and Susan found herself grasping the offered hand firmly and smiling back. The woman had large brown eyes that seemed filled with a joy in living that Susan was far from feeling herself. She had a broad cheerful smile and an energy about her that seemed to take up far more room than she could physically occupy.

"I'm Susan Campbell," she introduced herself and the other woman cocked her head in bright-eyed interest.

"Campbell? Are you Scottish?"

"No, my husband was," she answered slowly. The grief was fading now, but she still missed him a lot.

"Divorced?" she asked with sympathy and Susan shook her head.

"He was killed in a car accident last year," she answered, though it still didn't seem quite real to her. Sometimes she dreamed that he had grown old, withering away while she stayed young, but the hospital therapist told her it was probably a metaphor for how she felt about being widowed.

"I'm so sorry!" Donna blurted and Susan could see that she really was. Donna Noble was a warm generous soul and there was no pretense in her at all. "Well, you come along now, Susan, I'll get you settled. This place is a bit posh; most of the folks are a bit snobbish too, but still its good money!" Susan smiled and followed along behind her. She felt like a dingy being pulled along in the wake of a steamer, but there was something so comforting about the other woman, that Susan hardly minded.

* * *

Near the End of Everything

He opened the watch, felt the terrible pain of being re-written of remembering that he had been living a fiction. Yana died and the Master was reborn.

The little bug was staring at him in distress and the bitter anger overcame him. Sixty years he'd been stuck as a human, sixty years spent being some sort of wandering saint! How nauseating.

"Chan Professor Dahl?" she was babbling at him again. Why couldn't she just shut up! He needed to think. The Doctor was here, was he trying to bring him back, to return him to Gallifrey? Where was Susan?

Damn it! He should be over this, back in control of himself! Why did he still ache for that woman?

The bug was still talking! The stupid bug that hadn't even thought to ask about the watch! She was responsible for this whole situation, he could have been gone years ago! He turned his blazing eyes on her and watched her step back from him in sudden alarm.

He had the Doctor's TARDIS here, he realized, and that gave him a plan.

* * *

He'd regenerated; his body was strong and vigorous again. He jumped up from the floor of the TARDIS and laughed.

He could feel the TARDIS trying to reject him. It had never forgiven him for calling her a "Stupid Antique" during that Axos incident. Still, his connection to Susan kept her from kicking him out completely or locking up the controls. Now, if the antique piece of junk could just take him to her!

"HA!" he shouted and the soft, faint voice deep inside of him drew him. He'd go back to Gallifrey, find her, claim her, and destroy everyone that got in his way. He'd dreamed about her even as a human, yearned for her body against his, and he would have her now, finally and at last.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N - I have gone back and re-written the whole story, adding a whole lot more into it. If you got an alert for a new chapter. Stop. Go back to the start and beginning reading again. :) Thank you.

Chapter 17 – Being Human

2006 Main Time Line/2009 Pete's World Time Line

Susan didn't mind the cold, but she did wrap her hands around the hot cocoa mug and huddle deeper into the flannel blanket, more for the coziness of the sensations than for actual warmth.

"You two girls don't want to spend your Friday night with a daft old man like me!" Mr. Mott scolded them. "You should be out having fun."

"This _is_ fun, really," Susan assured him and Donna nodded as well.

"Gramps, we're here because we want to be," she assured him and he smiled, a trifle skeptical, but willing to be won over.

"So, you were telling us about the ascension of Venus," Susan prompted, not because she wanted to know, but because she could listen to Wilfred Mott ramble on for hours in his sweet, kind voice. He reminded her of her grandfather, she thought, and then frowned, her grandfather? Wilfred Mott was nothing like the grandfather that she knew she'd had once. Yet, the feeling persisted.

Donna was sitting on a blanket on the ground and once more Susan was reminded how deeply grateful she was that the other woman had befriended her. It was so nice to have a mate, someone to hang about with. She hadn't had that in a very long time.

She also really loved the stars. She could look through the telescope for hours, staring up at those distant suns, wishing she could visit them.

"Really though, Susie girl, you are far too pretty to be sitting about here with me," he continued and she smiled rather sadly at him. "You should find yourself a nice man."

"I had a nice man, Mr. Mott; I had the best and kindest of men. My David was brave, and good, and loving. He was simply the most wonderful man I've ever known," she answered, though there was something in her mind that hinted that the last words were not entirely true. She had met someone else wonderful once, but she couldn't remember. "I'm just not sure that I'll ever find anyone I'll love like I loved him," she admitted and Donna patted her knee gently in sympathy. "I look at the men around me and all I can think of is that they're not him, they're not the right one…" she trailed off as she tried to find words for something she didn't really comprehend herself.

"Well, I understand that. My wife, Donna's Grandma, was the one and only love of my life. There was never a woman who even came close to her and there never will be," he replied and the elderly blue eyes met brown ones, which only seemed young on the surface, in perfect understanding.

She dropped the blanket and went to look through the telescope. The stars were so beautiful, so wonderful, and so full of promise. She tilted the telescope towards where Mars was hovering right beneath Leo and found herself smiling.

"So Susan, you never said where you were from," Mr. Mott asked her.

"Gallifrey," she answered absently, her mind on the heavens rather than the Earth.

"Gallifrey? Is that somewhere in Ireland?" Donna's brash voice cut through her abstraction and Susan turned to stare at them both in confusion.

"Why did I say that? I was born in London," she corrected and then felt tears welling up in her eyes.

"What's wrong?" Mr. Mott asked her and she shook her head.

"I don't know, it's just that sometimes I feel so alone, so lost, like I'm not even real," she explained helplessly.

"Of course you're real, Susan!" Donna assured her. "I can see you standing right there!"

"I felt that way for years, Susie," Mr. Mott told her, patting her on the shoulder soothingly. "After my wife died and I was left alone to raise Sylvia, I often felt like it wasn't really real. I kept thinking that I'd wake up one day and there she'd be, asleep in the bed beside me, and we'd have a laugh about my bad dream." Susan nodded her understanding.

"Yes, I keep thinking the same thing; that I'll wake up one day and it will have all been a dream." She didn't tell him though that the real fear in her was that this dream was a good one and when she woke up, the reality would be something far, far worse.

* * *

2006 Main Time Line

Earth, the early 21st century, of course. He cursed and brought his fists down on the console, fury ripping through him. Damn the Doctor anyway, he just wanted to get to Susan! Well, and to punish all the smirking bastards who'd enslaved him for their stupid war in the first place.

Where was she? Even here, in a time where she ought to be as close to him as his own breath, he could barely hear her mind. He'd thought the faintness of the connection was due to the distance in time, but no, there was something else, something was wrong.

He went to the TARDIS communicator and dialed Gallifrey. Yes, he'd run away, deserted his post, but they'd still take him back again. They'd punish him, torture him, but they'd bring him back and then he could take her from them and go.

There was no response.

That was impossible.

Gallifrey had to answer. They _had_ to.

What had the Doctor said? He'd not been paying attention, which might have been a mistake, but Omega, how the man could babble on for hours!

Wait. He'd said they were the last two left? Inconceivable. Gallifrey was Gallifrey! It had stood for a billion years. Yet, Professor Yana had known nothing of it. He'd heard no legends, no stories, not even a myth….

Grief, rage, desperation, loss, they went through him in waves. He scanned the universe, searching for his home and found nothing but ashes and dust.

It was gone. _She_ was gone. It wasn't possible.

No, she couldn't be gone, she could _not_ be dead! She was there in his head still, faint, barely perceptible, but there. Was that just his imagination? Was he fooling himself? Could he just not accept that he'd failed to get to her, that he'd left her to die? Surely the Doctor had saved her! If no one else, he had to have saved _her_! They couldn't have both left her behind to die. He couldn't have lost her after all that he'd gone through.

But he had, he'd left her there in the heart of the Time War and run away. He'd saved himself and lost her forever.

It didn't matter. (It mattered more than anything else.) He didn't care. (He was bleeding, dying, falling apart inside.) He was the Master! He needed nothing and no one! (He was Koschei who needed her so badly that his whole body ached with it.) She was dead. (He was dead and nothing mattered anymore.)

He stepped out of the TARDIS, raw and filled with despair, into a park in London. The sun shone down brightly, the birds were singing, and he hated them all. The TARDIS was set to this time and the end of everything. He glared at the happy people all around him and a sudden thought occurred to him.

The Doctor was trapped at the other end of time. Oh, he'd get free, he always did. That man had more luck than any thousand other people. But, until then… He had this entire world all to himself to play with. No other Time Lords existed.

There was no one to stop him anymore. He burst into hysterical laughter and then ducked back into the TARDIS. He had plans to make.

* * *

The Trade Minister's dinner party was as dull as every one of the other stupid events he'd attended of late, but it provided him the opportunity to hypnotize half a dozen top officials, all while looking utterly innocent.

He turned to spot his next prey and saw a girl, slender, fragile, with blonde hair and blue eyes. His hearts surged with hope and she turned and glanced at him, but it wasn't her, it wasn't Susan. So close, so very close in face and body, but still not the same girl. He stumbled, grief shredding him again, and the girl ran to his side.

"Are you alright?" she cried, grabbing at him with sweet concern.

"You're very kind," he murmured. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Lucy Cole," she replied and he smiled at her and reached into her mind. If he couldn't have the real thing, he'd make do with a substitute, he'd take little Lucy and then he'd find a way to make them all pay.

"Hello Lucy, I'm Harold Saxon." He replied and pressed her hand to his lips. She trembled and looked up at him with huge guileless eyes and he felt a surge of triumph.

* * *

2006 MTL/2009 PWTL

Susan Campbell shut the door behind her with a kick of her foot. She wrestled the groceries into the kitchen and just thinking about making dinner made her sigh. She was so tired of cooking only for herself. She pulled out a frozen dinner and tossed it in the microwave.

She sat in front of the telly and ate her lukewarm food, wondering why none of the men at the office appealed to her. She kept waiting for something, a look in their eyes, a quirk of their lips, and when it wasn't there, she turned away. They were never quite right, but she had no idea what 'quite right' meant.

Well, it didn't matter, tomorrow was Friday and she could go sit with Donna and Mr. Mott, staring up at the stars. She'd eat at their house, Sylvia might be an awful nag and Geoff was an angel to put up with her, but she could certainly cook! It would be pleasant to pretend to be part of a family for a while.

She turned and stared around at her flat. One bedroom, one bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room, it was small, but she kept it clean. There wasn't much in the way of furniture. She never felt as though it were really home, so she'd put little effort into decorating it.

She wandered over to the drawing board in the corner and looked down at her last sketch. A domed city lay nestled between impossibly high mountains and glittering under an orange sky. She dreamed about this place so often, but when she woke, it made no sense to her. Nothing in her life really seemed to make much sense.

She flipped through the other pictures, the gorgeous man with the black hair and goatee and the intense dark eyes, the white haired old man, who also seemed to be so many other people as well, as though her mind could never decide what he looked like. The old woman, with her kind, sad, eyes, and all the others, sketch after sketch, people who felt as familiar to her as her own heartbeat, yet were strangers, mere figments of her dreaming self.

Why couldn't she ever seem to make sense of the scattered fragments of her memories? Why did everything seem so real in her dreams, but so flat and fake in her waking world? With a frustrated sigh, she dragged herself to bed and collapsed into sleep.

* * *

"Susan." She opened her eyes and there was a stranger in her bed. But, when he smiled at her, she realized what she'd been looking for all this time. His smile was bitter, a little mocking, his eyes were dark, fathomless, and the look in them was possessive and hungry, and so very familiar.

Not knowing who he was, not knowing why, she opened her arms to him and he fell on her. He was kissing her, but it wasn't something sweet or gentle, he was fierce, aggressive, burning her up with his need, but she didn't care. She let go and returned that kiss, falling into whatever this was without a backward glance.

Somewhere in her mind she was a little shocked, she was never this bold, this forceful with men. Not men, something in her mind told her, just _this_ man. This was the one she needed, the one she'd been looking for, and for so very long.

He collapsed into her arms and she clutched him to her, not wanting to let him get even an inch away from her.

"Oh stars, woman, you're killing me," he moaned and she held him tighter still. "Where the hell were you? I thought you were dead!"

"I don't understand. Who are you?" she whispered and he looked at her in astonishment, those black eyes going wide.

"Susan?" he nearly whispered, hands wandering over her face like a blind man trying to see.

"Yes?" She wondered how he knew her name, when she didn't know his.

"You know me, you must!" he demanded. "You know who I am!"

"I can't remember, I'm sorry," she told him and his face cracked, his eyes suddenly bleak and lost. "But I do know you, I don't know how, but I do," she told him, confused by the conversation, by the conflicting emotions in her chest, the pressure in her head as she tried to remember. But it was undeniable that she felt more connected to this mad stranger in her bed than she ever had to anyone else, he was more real to her than any other aspect of her life.

He pressed a hand to her chest and then looked up into her eyes with an expression that was almost pity.

"Only one heart," he murmured.

"Of course, doesn't everybody?" she asked him with a surprised laugh, and then her alarm went off.

She woke suddenly, alone in her bed, and the pain of it was enough to make her burst into tears. A dream, her mad stranger was just a dream.

* * *

The Master woke and stared at the ceiling. He was dreaming of her again. Omega, how fucking pathetic was he? She was dead, but he couldn't admit it deep down, he was even creating scenarios in his subconscious to explain her absence in his mind. The woman in the dream hadn't even looked like her, he sighed. Ginger hair, chocolate eyes, a body that was full and curvy, and a sensual mouth that had done the most incredible things to him.

She was dead. He had to learn to accept it. He'd go take it out on Lucy for a while, wear the edges off. He needed to find a way to get free of the compulsion she had become, but he didn't know how.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18 - Cold Steel, Warm Hearts

2007 Main Time Line/2010 Pete's World Time Line

Susan was waiting for her microwave to beep when the high pitched 'download available' tone started. The night was dark and she had a moment to be surprised at the late night activity before the pain started.

Something was trying to control her mind and there was no version of herself that would ever tolerate that.

She fell to the ground and her father's old pocket watch, the one she'd carried around with her since his death, tumbled from her hand. Golden light wisped from under the cover and with trembling fingers, she fought the compulsion in her mind, and reached for it. She grabbed it and then flicked it open.

She screamed as pain coursed through her, her ear buds falling, smoking, from her ears, but she hardly noticed, the agony was so intense.

"Help me!" she screamed. What was happening to her? Terrified and confused, Susan Campbell, the temp from Chiswick, died.

* * *

Susanatrevalar was lying on the floor, the open pocket watch lying beside her. Oh God, it hurt so much. She hadn't even completely finished her regeneration when she'd been changed into a human and now her Time Lord biology was making up for lost time, and with a vengeance.

Her ears, still bleeding from where her ear buds had been trying to possess her, were healing up and golden light was still licking along her skin.

Memory was overwhelming her and she was horrified as she realized that her whole world had died and for six months she hadn't even been able to mourn for it. She was crying, sobbing out her grief and loss.

Her memories of this world confused her. Where was she? Where had Great Gran sent her? Zeppelins, in London of the early 21st century made no sense to her.

She recalled the dream she'd had of Koschei. He'd changed his face, asked where she was. That was an odd thing for her to dream about. He was a psychopath, a mass-murderer, an insane narcissist, and yet still she dreamed of him, wanted him, and needed him. She still clung to Darginian's words, remembered that he's said the Master had still been trying to get to her. It ought to terrify her that he hadn't forgotten her, instead, it made her feel better.

How utterly pathetic.

She lay on the floor and the pain was finally subsiding. She was hearing people shouting, screaming, and the sounds of booted feet. She knew that she had to rise, to help, but she could barely move. This regeneration wasn't going well at all. Having it delayed by six months was causing problems.

She had to get to her TARDIS. She'd be safe in there, unlike the rest of London's citizens…

"Oh, God! Donna! Mr. Mott!" she cried, dragging herself upright and then struggling from her flat. She had to find them and get them to safety!

* * *

2007 MTL

Harry Saxon smiled down at his wife and tucked her arm in his. Lucy was looking up at him with glowing eyes and he reveled in her worshipful adoration of him. Here was a woman that wanted to be with him, that wanted to lie beneath him, and was flatteringly responsive.

It wasn't as good as the dreams had been though.

Nonsense. The dreams weren't real. Mrs. Lucy Saxon was real. Flesh and blood, her skin so hot under his fingers and his mouth. Susan didn't want him? Then fine, he'd show her, he'd make Lucy scream every night, proving again and again that she'd been wrong to spurn what he'd offered. He'd prove that he'd been right to leave her to die on Gallifrey.

Even if he still burned for her. Even if the memory of her made his hearts beat faster and his eyes burn with some unnamable emotion.

The wedding had been the talk of the society papers, of course. The British were such snobs, marry a Lord's daughter and you could be the lowest form of life and they'd still smarm all over you.

He pulled Lucy into a kiss, enjoying every bit of her instant submission to him. Her pulse fluttered with excitement and her simple little ape mind was instantly aroused. She was so cute, like a puppy.

Flashbulbs popped and he smiled at the cameras, Lucy looking becomingly flustered. Yes, she was working out well, she smoothed his rough edges in the press, they were so busy fluttering over her, that they were easily swayed by his lies and deceits.

Of course, Archangel helped with that. He waved at the paparazzi and stepped into their lovely home. It wasn't yet 10 Downing Street, but that would come soon enough.

He shut the door and then pushed Lucy up against it. His hands and his mind reached into her, arousing her, enjoying the power he had over her. He He went slow at first, enjoying the way she whimpered, the way she pleaded, and finally he let himself go. As he did, he saw Susan's face in his mind, huge brown eyes, waves of ginger hair, looking at him with a sad, almost pitying look.

He jerked back from Lucy, suddenly revolted by the thought that he'd been mounting this little ape.

"Harry?" she asked uncertainly and he shook his head.

"Sorry, Love, I just suddenly felt so foolish," he lied smoothly. "I should have at least gotten you to the bedroom." He forced a chuckle and she smiled shyly at him.

"Oh Harry, you know I like it when you lose control like that," she told him and he was hard pressed not to laugh. Lose control? She'd never seen him lose control and he very much doubted that she'd like the real thing at all.

"Then let's try that again, this time in a bed," he murmured seductively. To hell with Susan, she was dead and gone, there were no Time Ladies left in all the universe, so Lucy was the best he was going to get.

At least Lucy liked what he did to her. He made sure of that. Every time he went into her mind he made sure that the craving she felt for him only became stronger. It would probably drive her mad one day, but that would be fine too.

He wouldn't be alone anymore.

* * *

2007 MTL/2010 PWTL

Susan was so tired, so weak, but she made it to Donna's house anyway. She banged on the door.

"Donna! Mr. Mott! Are you okay?" she called and the door opened suddenly. Hands grabbed her and pulled her inside. Mr. Mott was looking at her with tears running down his face.

"Sylvia and Geoff, they just got this blank look and marched away! I couldn't stop them!" he cried and then Donna launched herself at Susan, hugging her hard.

"I've never been so glad to be poor in my life, Susan!" Donna sobbed. "I never could afford to buy ear buds!"

"I'm so glad you're alright!" Susan murmured, hugging her tightly back. "Look, I've got to get you two to safety, and then I'll go looking for Sylvia and Geoff!"

"To safety?" Donna wailed. "Where the hell is safe in London right now?"

"Ruskin Park," she answered, because that's where her TARDIS was parked.

* * *

It took far longer to convince Donna to go with her than she liked. She had to explain the whole concept of Cybermen and then she had to explain what she thought had happened. By the time she got them all to leave the house, the Cybermen in the streets were screaming and holding their heads. She could feel the emotions coursing through them, as they wailed in pain and horror at what they'd become.

"Oi! What's happening?" Donna shouted and Susan looked around at them, pity in her hearts.

"They've been given back their emotions, their memories, they remember being human," she told them and tears were running down her face.

"That's awful!" Mr. Mott was looking at them, concern written on his face. "Those poor people!"

"They're blowing up!" Donna screamed and Susan grabbed them and pulled them back towards the house.

Something was niggling in the back of her mind and she frowned, looking around the street.

"What is it, Susan?" Mr. Mott asked her.

"I don't know, I feel weird, like I'm forgetting something important," she answered, trying to figure out what the sensation in her head was.

Red light lit the sky in the distance and she heard the sound of a distant explosion.

"If this were my universe," she muttered. "That would be a sure sign that Grandfather was about someplace." She smiled thinking about it and then her eyes widened. "Grandfather!"

"What?" Donna called.

But Susan was off and running, her boots pounding on the London streets.

She was very close to him, when suddenly the connection ended and she was standing in the middle of the street, with a terrible emptiness in her head. The complete absence of another Time Lord's consciousness was a wrenching blow that drove her to her knees.

She was alone, completely and utterly. She was the only one of her kind in the entire universe. It was shattering. She knelt on the ground, weeping and banging her fists on the pavement. Even knowing that others might be out there somewhere, not being able to feel them in her mind was pushing her over into madness. It was so empty in her mind.

"Susan!" Mr. Mott was running up to her and he knelt beside her and pulled her into his arms. "What happened? Are you alright?"

She turned and burrowed into the old man's arms, sobbing, feeling the gentle concern he radiated and absorbing it into herself, relaxing and forcing her mind to calm.

"I thought I saw my grandfather go by, but it was just my imagination," she lied. "I miss him so much!"

"That's all right, Susie girl, you can be my grandchild if you want to," Mr. Mott assured her and she laughed softly.

"Oh," she sighed. "I'd like that." After all, just because she was four hundred years older than he was, didn't make his offer any less wonderful.

* * *

2008 MTL

The Master was standing too near to him, which was usually not a problem for Jack, but the perfect black suit and well-trimmed dark hair didn't hide how his eyes were filled with madness. Lucy, arms wrapped around herself, was standing behind him looking fragile and terrified.

"Talk to me Jack, surely he told you things," the Master was whispering. "The Doctor trusted you. He must have mentioned something, anything."

"I don't know anything," Jack repeated.

"He must have told you about his people, about his family, where did he hide them?" the Master persisted and Jack looked at him with a feeling of pity in his heart. For all that he was a homicidal maniac; he was also one of the last survivors of his race, left alone by their destruction. Jack remembered how the Doctor used to be, how grim and lost he'd been. He'd been prone to staring off into space, angry and forbidding, brooding over the past. How much more must the Master, who wasn't playing with a full deck to begin with, be suffering and dying inside. Professor Yana, the gentle, kind scientist, willing to die for the sake of the human race was there, somewhere behind the mad dark eyes. Jack could feel it sometimes and it broke his heart.

"He told me he was the last, which was obviously not true," Jack stared at the Master pointedly and the madman laughed, bitter and angry. He looked up at Jack and there was utter despair in his gaze.

"Harry, please," Lucy tugged on the Master's arm and he spun to glare at her, as though he'd forgotten that she was there.

"Everything I went through and I'm left with nothing," he whispered, staring at Lucy, but not seeing her at all. "She's still beyond my reach." He reached out and touched her face with fingers gone tender and loving, but Jack could tell that he was reaching for something that only existed in his own mind.

"Harry?" she whimpered and he dropped his hand as though it had been burned, looking at Lucy with a terrible sadness. He shrugged off her arm, as though she was little more than an annoyance, and turned back to Jack.

"He's always got the luck, the Doctor has, he must have found a way to save her, tell me!" he begged and Jack looked at him with confusion in his eyes.

"Saved who?" he asked and the Master frowned.

"His family, he'd never have left them to die. He must have saved them," the Master insisted and Jack looked at him with eyes that had seen far too much.

"I don't know who the Doctor was before the Time War, but the man I know, yeah, he'd have left them to die. If it was the difference between the universe being saved or lost, he wouldn't hesitate, he'd do it. He'd kill them all." Jack's voice was harsh with memory. He'd been sacrificed, half of Earth was destroyed, all to end the Dalek's threat.

"No, not her, he wouldn't have killed her, he loved her more than any of the rest of them." The Master stared into his eyes for long moments, waiting for some sign that Jack couldn't give him and then, when he didn't find it, he lashed out. His strength was that of a Time Lord, a strength fueled by his fury and madness, and Jack's head rocked back from the impact, pain exploding in his skull, and light flashing behind his eyes. He waited for the next blow, but the Master was already storming away, not even looking back at his wife and his prisoner as they stared after him.

"Lucy?" Jack looked at the woman who had stood by the Master for all this time and she looked up at him, blue eyes confused and sad. "Who is he looking for?"

"I don't know," she whispered, shaking her head. "Sometimes," she hesitated as though afraid to speak. "Sometimes, when he's sleeping, he says her name." She looked around, as though to be certain they were alone. "Susan," she hissed from behind her hand, as though the name itself was forbidden. Suddenly frightened by her temerity, Lucy darted from the room, leaving Jack baffled behind her.

Susan? That hardly sounded like the name of a Time Lord, but of course, what did he know? The only two he'd ever met were called the Doctor and the Master, not exactly helpful.


	19. Chapter 19

A/N - So, more added, as well as me merging some of "Gravity" back into this story for the sake of continuity. :)

Chapter 19 – Always the Women

The Doctor sat in his dog house and stared out at the floor. His mind was working, reaching out to the Archangel Network, cautiously and carefully insinuating himself into it. Making himself a part of it. It was the sort of thing he wasn't normally very good at. He hated being patient and working slowly. But, if he wanted to get in and not alert the Master to what he was doing, he had to be wary.

"Doctor," the Master called out, leaning down to look into the dog house. "How's it feel to be the mad dog now?" he asked with a bitterness that made the Doctor feel tired and sad. "You looked lonely. So, I thought I'd come and chat." The Master sat, cross legged, frowning like a petulant child and stared at him. "You know, Doctor, I was expecting you to be more fun than this."

"Sorry," the Doctor sighed out and looked at his oldest friend, feeling nothing but the grief of time passing, wasted and trickling away. In the back of his mind he had a hope. If he could get the Master to work with him, to come back to sanity, he knew his old friend could find a way back to Rose for him. She was alone in another universe and he knew that the Master could figure out a way to get there, the two of them together, they could do it.

"Do you remember Nyssa?" the Master asked suddenly. "And that other one, the mouthy Aussie with the pout."

"Tegan."

"Right, right! Tegan! I was just thinking about her the other day. Wonder what she's up to? Should I go find out? I wonder if I've killed her yet?" he taunted and the Doctor sighed out, wondering what had happened to drive him so far away from even the man he used to be.

"You used to be better at this, Master, you're slipping," he informed him and watched the Master's face darken with anger.

"Whose fault is that?" the Master snapped. "You destroyed Gallifrey! Gallifrey! And for what? For these miserable crawling worms? To destroy the Daleks? Those clunking stupid pepper pots?" The Master surged to his feet and began pacing, his hands running through his hair, his face twisted in fury.

"It was the only way," he repeated and the Master spun and glared at him.

"You killed your entire family!" he shouted. His mood changed suddenly and he looked abruptly thoughtful. "Mind you, your brother was rubbish, so no big loss there, actually. Your son and his wife, awful people, hated them!" Then he turned and his eyes darkened again. "But your Mum? Your granddaughter? Now that was cold, Doctor, did they deserve that?"

He closed his eyes against the memory of his mother's face. The last time he'd seen her, looking at him with such worry and concern and Susan, with her soft smile, her anxious eyes, her gentle caring heart, thinking about her hurt even worse.

"Susan, I'm so sorry," he groaned out and his head fell into his hands and the Master went white with fury.

"Sorry?" he grumbled. "That's the best you can do is it? How pathetic. A billion years of Time Lord history, power, and majesty, and you destroy it for what? For them?" he gestured out at the window, indicating the Earth below them with contempt.

"For everything, for the rest of creation," the Doctor told him, but the Master was already storming away, fury in his steps, hands clenched at his sides. "Susan would have understood. I'm sure she would." He told himself and he really, really, hoped it was true.

* * *

2008 MTL

The loud bang was followed by sudden pain. He looked to where Lucy, his little puppy, his pet, was staring at him, eyes wide and unfocused, and he sighed. He collapsed backwards and the Doctor caught him, lowering him to the ground, but not releasing him.

"Always the women," he grumbled. He'd failed with Susan, been killed by that bug, and now his Susan-proxy, Lucy, had shot him. "Dying in your arms, happy now?" he asked the Doctor with an ironic lift of his brow.

"You're not dying, don't be stupid. It's only a bullet, just regenerate." He looked up into eyes that were sad, pitying, and was that a touch of desperation he was seeing?

"No," he answered, feeling as though he finally had one over on the Doctor. Whether he regenerated or not, he could always come back, but the Doctor didn't know that.

"One little bullet, come on," his oldest friend murmured to him, his eyes begging not to be left alone.

"I guess you don't know me so well... I refuse." Now the Doctor would know how it felt, he'd know how the Master had suffered, how he still suffered without Susan. He'd punish the Grandfather for the Granddaughter's rebuff. That was damn near poetic.

"Regenerate. Just regenerate! Please, please! Just regenerate, come on!" The Doctor was begging, how utterly delightful.

"And spend the rest of my life imprisoned with you?" After all, Susan had refused that fate with him, so it was only fair. He enjoyed the look of pain on the Doctor's face. (Oh Theta, how far we've fallen, you and I)

"You've got to! Come on. It can't end like this. You and me, all the things we've done. Axons! Remember the Axons? And the Daleks. We're the only two left. There's no one else... REGENERATE!" The silly fool was crying, crying for him, crying for the man who hated him, who wanted him dead. (My dearest friend, forgive me)

"How about that? I win," he replied, chuckling, and as he faded, he felt it, a sudden flash of fear and sorrow. "Will it stop, Doctor, the drumming, will it stop?" Koschei asked, wondering if after all this time, he might be able to escape from his madness.

"Koschei!" Somewhere in his mind, Susan was screaming, or at least her ghost was. "Don't leave me!" Good, she was suffering too, they both were.

That was perfect.

(Oh, Susan…I'm sorry)

* * *

The Doctor held his oldest friend, the final casualty of the Time War in his arms, feeling his body cooling, even as he tried to will him to live. He was gone, the Master was gone, and the Doctor was alone again. The soft hum of another of his kind's thoughts had faded away and he was left with the terrible aching pain in his mind once more.

The vast emptiness inside of him was too much to bear.

* * *

2008 MTL/ 2011PWTL

"Koschei! Don't leave me!" Her mind was in a turmoil as she jerked up from her desk with a sudden feeling of terrible loss. Tears blurred her vision and she clutched her chest, feeling her hearts stuttering in pain.

"Mrs. Campbell? Are you alright?" Lance asked solicitously. He was head of HR and all the office girls thought he was rather nice, but Susan couldn't shake the feeling that there was something insincere about him.

"Yes," she lied. "I'm fine." She sat down and took a few deep breaths. Something had happened, something terrible. She stood up and went to the Ladies.

Once inside, she sat down on a toilet lid in a stall and burst into tears.

She couldn't understand why she was crying until she realized that even the ghost of Koschei in her mind was now gone.

The bond had been shattered.

He was dead somewhere.

A feeling of despair washed over her; on a personal level she was devastated. He'd been in her head for nearly half of her life. He'd been the dream she'd clung to when all else had fallen away. She'd wanted so badly to save him, to bring him to a place of peace in his own mind.

She'd failed him utterly and that was torment enough for her.

But also, the Last Vision was still there in her head. She needed him if she was going to warn Grandfather, if she was going to be able to reach across the Void to him and tell him what he needed to know.

She needed him.

* * *

2008 MTL/ 2011PWTL

Susan looked up from her drawing table, her eyes glinting as she felt it. Time Lord minds, two of them!

"Grandfather!" She recognized the mind instantly, she'd been waiting nearly a year, sitting with Mr. Mott and Donna, alone now in their big house, watching the stars go out and holding tight to each other.

She'd taken her TARDIS out and found that the stars were really gone, she'd had a bad moment when she'd been nearly unraveled and had barely escaped back to Earth. She didn't know the cause of the destruction, but she knew it was bad.

Then, suddenly, it had stopped. The stars had returned and everything had gone back to normal, everyone around her forgetting it had ever happened. So, she'd waited. He had to be behind that after all.

She reached with her mind, trying to get to her Grandfather's awareness, but he was locked down emotionally, feelings contained, his internal pain so great, it kept her out. The other mind was chaotic, shattering, falling apart, she didn't understand, but she backed away quickly getting little that was coherent from it, and then, just as suddenly, he was gone again.

Damn the man, couldn't he stay still, in one place, for more than five minutes? She'd simply have to wait for the next time, or manage to find another Time Lord who could fix her TARDIS, since it was refusing to travel to any other universe than this one.

* * *

Rose Tyler stood on a beach, cold wind blowing through her soul and watched the TARDIS vanish. The Doctor, the new one, reached out and took her hand and together they stood there, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of their lives.

"I've gotten ahold of Pete! He's sending a zeppelin for us!" Jackie told them and the Doctor turned and grinned at her.

"Did he finally buy you one?" he asked and Jackie grinned back and nodded.

"When Tony was born," she chuckled.

He looked down at Rose and saw the tears tracking down her cheeks.

"Are you okay with all of this?" he asked softly, his other self hadn't really given her much choice in the matter.

"No, I'm not!" she wailed and he had a moment of sheer terror. Was he going to lose her? Was it over before it had even started? Suddenly she spun and flung herself into his arms, sobbing wildly and he wrapped her up tightly against his heart and held her.

"Oh, Rose, my love, it'll be all right. We'll make this work somehow, I promise," he babbled and Rose clutched him tightly, shoulders shaking. "I love you so much. I will always be here, by your side, I'll never leave you, I promise. We'll have such a wonderful time. We'll do anything you like, at your pace, however you want things done, okay? It'll be fine, my heart, it will," he babbled, trying to soothe the pain and grief she was feeling and she shook her head against his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Doctor," she mumbled and it took him a moment to realize that she was talking to him. She'd called him 'Doctor' and it made him deliriously happy. "I'm not crying because of you, I'm crying because of him," she told him and he was confused. "He'll be so lonely!" Understanding bloomed inside of him and he nodded.

"Lonelier than ever, because even the hope of you will be gone," he sighed out. No more Donna, no more Rose, what would his other self ever do? How would he survive?

"He couldn't watch me die, could he?" she whispered and he nodded.

"No, I don't think he could watch either of us die, really." She looked up at him and tears were still trickling down her face.

"I would have stayed with him forever," she sighed out and then dropped her head on his chest.

"He knows that and it means everything to him. But, watching someone you love that much growing old and dying is agonizing, but worse than that is living for centuries more, without them." She nodded against him. "I lost you once and it nearly killed me, I don't think he would have survived it again."

"So, you love me?" she asked, her head coming up and those amazing brown eyes were warm on his. He wiped the tears from her eyes and fetched out a handkerchief for her from his jacket pocket.

"Yup," he told her, popping the 'p' just to make her smile at him. She blew her nose and smiled again.

"And you want to spend the rest of your life with me?" she asked, her eyes filled with so much love that it made his single heart flutter.

"Oh yes," he agreed and he'd never meant anything as much as he'd meant that.

"Then where would you like to get married?" She cocked her head to one side, her smile dazzling.

"Rose Tyler, I will go anywhere, do anything, and wear anything, as long as it includes trainers, that you want. I don't care how we get married, as long as we do, and as long as we have a brilliant honeymoon," he informed her, watching her smile grow wider as he spoke to her.

"Here now! I'm planning this wedding and you are not wearing trainers to it!" Jackie interrupted and the couple looked at her in dismay.

"I bet there is a Justice of the Peace in town," Rose suggested.

"Run!" he laughed, grabbing her hand and taking off, their feet flying over the sand.

"Don't you dare, you two! I have waited all her life to plan her wedding!" Jackie shouted after them, but they were running and laughing and the whole world was in front of them. They had a lifetime together to get started on.

The long gray ribbon of the road between the bay and the nearest town gave them the opportunity to hold hands, swinging their clasped fingers between them with grins on their faces.

"So, did you know what he intended to do?" she asked him and watched him frown a bit.

"I had a suspicion, after all, aside from some minor differences, we're the same man. I even understand why he was angry at me, even if I can't agree with him on this," he told her and she frowned.

"You mean the whole 'genocide' thing?" she asked and he nodded again.

"When I destroyed both Gallifrey and the Daleks, it was the worst, most horrible feeling in the universe. I wondered if killing people, or getting them killed was all that I was good for. I thought that maybe I was a worse monster then any of the creatures that I'd fought for so long," he confessed and she stopped to step into his arms and hold him tightly. "Then you took my hand and I could see it in your eyes. I could see that I hadn't fallen as far as I'd feared. I wasn't a monster, after all." She kissed him again and he leaned into her, arms and lips so much warmer than they had been.

"Oh Doctor," she sighed. "I'm sorry that you had to go through all of that," she told him, stroking his hair gently.

"Yeah, but you fixed that, love, sure it still hurts like hell, but just the way you look at me makes it all better, really," he assured her and kissed her brow with gentle tenderness. They released each other and began walking up the road again.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20 – Bloody Norway

"So, you destroying the Daleks reminded the other Doctor of all of his own past actions?" she asked next, trying to get some understanding of his mind.

"Yeah, I think seeing me do that, even after all that we both had seen, it hurt him, made him feel like a monster all over again." The Doctor shook his head with another sigh.

A car came towards them and the Doctor waved it down. It was a little Citroën and the driver was a tiny old woman who looked at them suspiciously. The Doctor spoke to her in Norwegian, at least Rose assumed it was and the woman thawed instantly, smiling and laughing at whatever he was saying. She had a face like a withered apple and bright sharp eyes.

She nodded and the Doctor opened the back door and they climbed in, him still chattering away to the old lady.

"This is Mrs. Falla, her family has lived around here for hundreds of years, she's going to take us to the Mayor, so we can get a license, and then we can go to the local church," he chirped happily to her and Rose found that she was grinning. He really hadn't changed much; he could still make friends in the most unlikely places.

The back seat was tiny and cramped, but neither of them minded.

The ride into the tiny town of Askvoll was picturesque. Mountains, water, rock, scrubby grass, the birds that were everywhere in the air, on the ground, perched on rocks, or in the infrequent trees that twisted up out of the ground.

Norway was beautiful, but Rose was feeling like she really wanted to go home. Too many life changing events seemed to happen here for her. At least, this one was going to be a good one. She grinned up at the Doctor and he grinned right back at her, and she felt like a goofy kid. They were getting married. It was certainly about time.

"I wish I had a working TARDIS Rose, I'd take you to all the best places," he whispered, looking down at the coral cupped in his hand, and she could see the sadness that lurked in the back of his eyes. After hundreds of years of having all of space and time at his feet, he was now trapped on the slow path with her, at least until they could figure out what to do with the coral the Doctor had left them with.

"We can still go anywhere, you know, Paris, Tokyo, and everywhere else on Earth," she assured him. "It's a big planet." He nodded and squeezed her hand.

"This, you and me, this is gonna be the best adventure ever," he told her and his eyes were bright and the sorrow had receded. She looked up at him and nodded.

"Big adjustment though, eh?" she asked, not quite ready to let go of the subject. They had a lot to work out, after all.

"It's not my first trip around the block, Rose Tyler," he disputed. "I was married before, had a son, a daughter-in-law, and a granddaughter. I had a brother, who was an arse, a mother that I adored, and a father I was determined not to grow up to be like; family is not something new for me. Just because they're all dead now, doesn't mean that I don't remember what it was like or what the job of husband entails," he told her and his voice was soft and filled with a longing she hadn't heard in it before.

"You must miss them so much," she murmured and wrapped an arm around his shoulder.

"My Mum and my granddaughter, yeah, I miss them every day. The rest of the family?" he shrugged. "It varies between a relief not to have to deal with them anymore and guilt that I feel that way. I loved my son, but he was ready to turn my little Susan over, just because it was politically expedient."

"So, not the happiest family life, then," she teased and he grinned at her.

"Oh, my little Susan and I were very happy, she'd have loved you, Rose, she would."

"She'd have approved of you marrying a human?" she asked in disbelief.

"Why not? She did," he told her and she blinked in surprise at that revelation. "It was, I think, the main reason the other me couldn't do it. I watched Susan after her husband died of old age. There she was, still young and vibrant, and she just froze over with grief. She never did recover. Two hundred years after his death and she still never dated, never remarried, never even looked at another man."

"Oh! How terribly sad," Rose gasped, suddenly seeing what the cost of marrying her would have been for the Time Lord Doctor. "I never thought about it, I guess, what would happen after."

"I know. It's hard to think that way when you're young. You only see the immediate joy and the long term sorrow seems so far away. But nine hundred years, Rose, it's a lot of perspective. It's a lot of painful experience." He rubbed at his head and she leaned against him, seeking comfort and warmth. He held her against him and she could feel him tense up.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm just still angry, I guess, angry at him for judging me. It's always all right for him to kill off a whole planet, but the minute someone else does it, it's suddenly a big problem," he grumbled and she grinned at him.

"Don't talk about yourself like that," she teased and he shook his head in amusement.

"I hereby apologize for having been an arse for the last nine centuries," he announced and Rose giggled.

"Apology accepted."

They reached the center of Askvell and Mrs. Falla dropped them off with happy congratulations. He waved good-bye to her, already feeling charmed with his new life. He'd rarely had to hitch a lift before. Having your own TARDIS insulated you a bit from such things.

"I ever tell you about the time that Marco Polo stole my TARDIS?" he asked Rose and she laughed.

"No! Really?"

"Yeah, I got stuck travelling the Silk Road with him for just months, trying to convince him to let me have it back. I almost won it back from Kublai Khan in a backgammon match, but the old cheater beat me in the end," he complained and Rose looked up at him with her smiling eyes and her tongue-tipped grin and he felt utterly content with everything. Well, except for the loss of his entire race, being dumped into an alternate universe, and not having a working TARDIS anymore.

"What was he like, Marco Polo?" she asked and he sighed.

"Far too trusting of the wrong sorts of people. Ian liked him a lot, but I really couldn't like a man who'd steal from an old man and a young girl," he grumbled and Rose laughed again.

"I bet he didn't know how old you really were!" she chortled and he sighed.

"Actually, back then I was really quite young. I looked so much older than I do now, but I was really still just a kid. I hadn't had all that Time Lord arrogance knocked out of my head yet either," he admitted and she stared at him. "What?"

"When did that happen, exactly, the bit where you stopped being arrogant?"

"Oi!" he shot back. "You should have seen me before, Rose, or met the High Council on Gallifrey! Now there was a load of stuffed shirts with more egotism than common sense! Don't even let me get started on Rassilon either! That man took narcissism to whole new heights!" he told her, with a roll of his eyes.

"All right, all right, I can see that you are an icon of humility in comparison," she teased and he started to calm down again. It seemed that he was a lot more angry in this body than he was in the other, or maybe he just wasn't as good at hiding the anger that they both had buried in them.

The memory of watching Gallifrey burn, of knowing that everyone he loved was dying or dead, hearing the screams of Time Lords and Daleks alike echoing in his head, washed over him. Tears pricked his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he told her. "I know I'm a bit rubbish, a sort of second-best, or also ran, for you." She grabbed him hard and kissed him, arms around his neck and body pressed against his. He was quickly overwhelmed by the sensations, her mouth on his, her hair against his face, the pulse of her heart against his own. Everything was washed away by her onslaught on him and he embraced her, holding her against him, falling into her gravity, burning up on re-entry, and happy to die in her arms.

She pulled back and they were both shaken by the intensity that was moving through them. She looked him in the eyes, her hands on either side of his face, making him look at her.

"You're not second best and you're not rubbish. You're the only one, of the two of you, who was willing to stick by me. You're the one who was able to tell me how you feel, the only one who would kiss me, hold me, and make me feel like I was worth standing beside. He left me, you didn't. That's not rubbish, that's what's really important, that's what matters. He's the one that's a bit rubbish, actually, because he ditched me," she informed him with a fierce glare and that aspect hadn't occurred to him before.

"He…" he began, but she cut him off.

"Don't let's make excuses for him, we both know it's not because he didn't love me, or want me. He couldn't make that leap, he couldn't risk his heart and I understand that. It hurts like hell, but I do get it. But I don't want to ever hear you say that you're less than he is, when you're so much more!"

He buried his face in her hair and held her tightly.

"Rose Tyler, I love you," he murmured and she squeezed him tightly.

"I love you too, Doctor," she told him. "Now, before Mum gets ahold of the police or something, let's get married.

"Allons-y!" he shouted and they ran for the town council building, hand and hand, grinning like children.

* * *

2009 MTL/ 2012PWTL

A week before Christmas and Susan was lying awake in Donna's spare bedroom. Wilf had begged her to come and stay and she hadn't been able to say no.

Since Geoff and Sylvia's conversions and deaths, Donna had struggled to pay the mortgage on her own. The insurance money hadn't helped much, "Cyber-conversion" wasn't really covered in the policy and the Cybermen who'd been proven to have killed themselves were considered "Suicides", which was all that had kept the insurance companies from going broke.

Susan had done what she could. She'd given Wilf a lotto ticket and he'd won enough to cover the mortgage for the year. She was unhappy even about that little bit of manipulation, but she'd needed to do something for them.

She had been tossing and turning all night, feeling as though something was happening, something that made her skin itch and her mind buzz.

She quieted her mind, forcing herself to be calm, and finally fell asleep.

* * *

She saw a woman, who looked rather like herself from her last regeneration, a girl really, not very old at all, she was sitting in a cell, weeping.

"What's wrong," she asked and knelt before the girl, reaching to take her small cold hands in hers.

"They'll come for me soon, the Cult of Saxon," the girl whispered. "I'm scared. I don't want to die."

"Why would they kill you?" Susan asked, fearful for this poor girl, wondering how she could help her.

"Because they want to bring him back, they want to bring him back to life, but they mustn't! He's evil!" she sobbed.

"What's your name?"

"Lucy Saxon," she sighed out. "I'm his wife." She broke into sobs and Susan sat beside her on the bench, rocking her gently. She wanted to give her comfort, to say that she would help, but she didn't know where they were.

"Where is this place?" she asked next.

"Broadmoor Prison."

"What on Earth are you doing in a prison, Lucy!" she looked into the broken eyes, saw the pain, the grief, and the horror in her and felt her hearts go out to the girl.

"I shot him, I killed the Master," she whispered and Susan jerked back from her.

"What?" she gasped, staring at the poor broken child, with her emotions in a tumult. Koschei, the beautiful soul she'd protected for two hundred years, the man who'd haunted her dreams, her mind for so long, she'd killed him? Yet, she could see the fractures in the girl's thoughts; she could see the brutality she'd been subjected to.

"He'd done the most terrible things, killed so many people, and the Doctor was going to let him get away with it all. He was going to take him away and he'd be in my head for the rest of my life, touching me, making me still want him!" the broken sobbing catalyzed her to gather Lucy up in her arms again. She murmured soothingly to her, stroking her hair.

"I'm so sorry for what you've gone through, Lucy. I'm so sorry."

"What's your name?"

"Susan."

Lucy drew back from her, eyes wide and filled with anger.

"Susan?" she spat out. "That's the name he used to call out when he was doing me! He would hit me, throw me down, use me like I wasn't anything at all, and call out for "Susan" while he did. He'd dream about her, whispering her name, he'd look at me and I would know it wasn't me he was seeing." The anger wound down and the girl was sobbing again and Susan gently draped an arm around her, cradling her against her chest. "I loved him so much, but I was never enough, never the right one."

Oh Koschei, she cried out in her mind, what did you do? My brilliant madman, you've gone so far away from yourself.

"I would have shot him too," Susan admitted and the girl looked up at her with heartbreaking sweetness, a small smile spreading across her lips.

"Thank you, Susan. You don't know what it means to hear someone say that to me. All I've heard was how wrong I was, how terrible a thing I'd done. Everyone judged me for it, but truly I just wanted him out of my mind."

"Oh sweetie," she patted the girl softly and kept rocking her.

"They'll be here soon and then I'll die," Lucy murmured. "I wanted to live, I really did. I don't want to die." The girl started to weep and Susan held her until she fell asleep and then sat stroking her hair, staring out the prison cell window and wondering, not for the first time, if she were crazy to imagine there was something good in the Master, if there had been any way to save him, or if his death had been the kindest result.

* * *

She woke in her own bed and she realized she'd been dreaming again, but this dream was baffling to her. What sort of twisted subconscious did she have to dream up something as awful as what happened to poor Lucy?

"Because they want to bring him back, they want to bring him back to life, but they mustn't! He's evil!"

She jolted to full awareness and the words seemed to ring in her ears. Something terrible was going to happen soon, she knew it.

* * *

Four Days Before Xmas

He was laughing in her head. His eyes were wild, his face distorted and she cried out in sorrow and grief for the madness that had consumed him. He was lost in the drumbeat, falling apart, and he needed her to fix him, to make it better, but no matter how she reached for him, she couldn't touch him, couldn't do anything but weep for him.

"Koschei!" she screamed and sat upright in the bed, heart pounding with fear, both for him and for the world.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21 – The Darkest Holiday

Two Days Before Xmas

Pain was ripping through her mind, something was rousing in her, screaming out and tearing itself from the deepest parts of her, and she fell to her knees and began to throw up.

"Susan!" Wilf called out and knelt beside her.

The Master's mind was moving through her, breaking out and in at the same time. The connection wasn't dead, it had been hiding, buried deep inside of her and now it was free, racing through her soul and then out of her, vanishing to elsewhere and else when.

"Sorry," she murmured, wiping her mouth. "Touch of flu, I think," she lied, her voice shaking and her body drenched with sweat.

"Come on, let's get you into a bed, Susie," he soothed and she went willingly.

She lay there and she felt as though she were in two places at once. She was in the bed, with Wilf and Donna fussing over her and she was also somewhere else.

She was with him, somehow inside of him, the connection between them singing with tension and pain. She reached into him, trying to repair what she could, pulling at the black cords, which were already starting to shred from the pressures put on him.

He was dying, his hearts were stuttering to a stop and she reached out, taking her own time, her own energy, and forcing it into him. She gave him a hundred years of her life and then she fell asleep.

* * *

The Day Before Xmas

He was cold and so very hungry. The hunger was an endless ache inside of him. I'm dying, he thought idly. Why aren't I already dead? Lucy's potion should have killed him. He knew that. So why? What had happened?

He tried to remember the moment, tried to go back in his mind. All he could recall was the scent of lavender and a flash of ginger. No, it was ginger hair and chocolate eyes. Could you be rescued by a fantasy? Could a dead girl reach out of your dreams and force your hearts to beat?

He was so hungry. Ravenous. Hands on his face, a touch of warm lips on his mouth, ghostly, but oh so perfect. He had been starving for so long.

Oh Susan, he wept, just look at me, with my drumbeat and my pain. Fallen so far, fallen so low. A shaggy, filthy wreck, a vagabond god fallen from heaven into the depths of hell, lying here in my empire of ashes and blood. Beating a rhythm into the blue sky to call my last friend, my best enemy, my final killer, my ultimate victim, to me.

If I die now, will you be there waiting for me? Do you still hate me? Do you curse me for leaving you to die, to burn with our world? Or, was it a relief that I never came for you? Did you pray for my death, for your freedom from me? What were we to each other? Was it always going to end this way? They were ghosts on different sides of life, him always reaching towards her, while she eluded him forever.

He was in pieces, jagged and bloody, and there was no future for him.

* * *

Xmas Day

"Choose your enemy well. We are many and the Master is but one," Rassilon his face still confident, his voice coaxing, called out to the Doctor.

"But he's the President. Kill him and Gallifrey could be yours," the Master shot back, what he wouldn't do to kill Rassilon, to make him bleed for all the centuries of pain he'd suffered.

The Doctor stood at the mid-point between him and the Lord President, pivoted on the spot, slammed the gun fast, from one hand to the other and pointed it again, now aiming at the Master, his chest heaving with the strain of his breathing.

"He's the one to blame, not me!" he cried out at the unfairness of it and the Doctor was staring at him, gun pointed towards his head and suddenly he realized the truth. "Ohh, but the link's inside my head. Kill me, the link gets broken... and they go back." It hurt to realize he'd been used by them so completely. Still, he knew the Doctor, knew how strong their friendship had always been. "You never would," he laughed. "You never would, you coward," he taunted him and then suddenly he understood. The Doctor would always protect the universe, he'd always put it first. He'd killed Susan for exactly this reason. If he could kill her, then the Master was nothing at all to him. "Go on then, do it!" he shouted. Kill Rassilon, kill him, what did it matter anymore. The Doctor would always put them first, always had, even over her life.

The Doctor's finger tightened on the trigger and his face tightened as well, with such conviction...

"Don't," he pleaded, he saw the anguish in his old friend's eyes. He didn't want to die; he just wanted the damn noise to stop. Pivot, switch, the Doctor spun round again and now the gun was pointed at the Lord President "Exactly! He's the link, it's him, it's not just me, kill him!" Then we can be done with this, maybe I can finally tell you all the things I never could before, Maybe I can tell you about Susan, about what she meant to me. I've been such a coward. I couldn't tell you before. A whole year I had and I couldn't make myself say the words.

"The final act of your life is murder, but which one of us?" Rassilon sneered at him and then the Master saw her, the Lady Professor, standing behind the President, she lowered her hands, looked up. The Doctor's eyes went to her and they stared at each other, with that unspoken communion that the Master had envied so much as a boy. Mother and son, always so close, always willing to let him into their home, their hearts, and he'd never known how jealous he'd been till now.

She looked so sad, but determined, staring at the Doctor. But then, her eyes flickered just a fraction to the right, she looked behind the Doctor, at the Master, and his hearts sank. She would sacrifice him as well, the woman who'd been so kind to the child he'd once been. Her kindness had just been a façade, like all the others.

The Doctor pivoted round, one last time, switched the gun to his other hand, now aiming it right at the Master. Terror jolted through him, the Master knew he was about to die.

"Get out of the way," the Doctor commanded him, but his voice was gentle, and it took the Master a moment before he understood, hope flaring in him along with a sudden joy. He fell to the side getting out of the way, so that the Doctor could fire on the Diamond.

The explosion knocked them to their knees, but the Master was jubilant. The Doctor could have killed him, should have, but didn't. For the first time ever, he'd put his friend first, he'd protected him, even when it could have meant the end of time. They hadn't been willing to sacrifice him, after all. He looked at the Lady Professor and she met his eyes.

"She never hated you," her mental voice was faint in his mind, but he heard it nonetheless. "Susan protected you to the end." He closed his eyes a moment, basking in that knowledge.

"The link is broken! Back into the Time War, Rassilon! Back into Hell!" the Doctor shouted and the Master cocked his head in amusement. He still hasn't really learned to rant properly, he thought to himself.

Rassilon stood against the howling winds that were sucking Gallifrey back, while the Visionary's voice screamed and babbled. That bitch could die and the Master would dance and sing, after all she'd done to Susan. The Lord President lifted up his gauntlet and pointed it at the Doctor, who just stood there, not moving.

"You'll die with me, Doctor," Rassilon shouted, still the vindictive twit he'd always been.

"I know," the Doctor replied and it annoyed the hell out of him. This is not how you do things! You kicked the bastards till they bled and then you kicked them some more!

"Get out of the way," he instructed the Doctor and gathered his life's energy in his hands. He threw years of his existence at Rassilon. Decades, centuries, burning up his lifespan to kill the man who'd destroyed that life. "You did this to me! All of my life! You made me!" He screamed at them, at the people who'd broken him, filled his head with madness, given him Susan, and then withheld her from him. He'd kill them all.

He felt arms around him; the brush of hair on his cheek, a ghost was wrapped around his heart, giving him what he needed.

Susan.

"Koschei, I'm here," she whispered in his ear and he felt her strength, her anger, her hatred of the man who stood, mocking and taunting them, and she joined it to him. It didn't matter anymore what they were to each other, it only mattered that they defeat this monster that had turned them into monsters as well.

He threw himself at his true worst enemy and he was sucked forward, ready and willing to fall back into hell, if only he could kill this one man, and save the Doctor. Maybe, just maybe, he'd be going back to Susan as well. Maybe she was there and he could die with her, as he was meant to.

He fell onto a hard stone floor and looked up.

There was silence in his mind; there was nothing, but the empty echoing hollow in his soul. The drumbeat was gone, the constant sound that had maddened him, driven him, defined him, was gone and he was alone. Completely.

He fell to the ground and beat at it. The unfairness of it all was too much. He wasn't dead, he wasn't with her, and he hadn't been able to strangle Rassilon with his bare hands.

He sat there for long moments and then raised his head to see the suns rising and realized that for the first time since he was eight years old, he could think clearly.

He looked into his own soul and screamed in horror at what he saw there.

He was a monster.


	22. Chapter 22

Epilogue

Susan felt him faltering, felt him dying, and she reached out her mind, reached with a power she couldn't have and pulled.

Golden light flared around her.

"Protect Koschei," her voice, but somehow not her voice, whispered to the universe. "Save him!" she commanded.

Her thoughts expanded, her mind broke open, and she screamed as the Arkytior sang through her soul. She realized what was happening and she throttled the power back, scrambling to control herself. Whatever she was doing, it had to stop! She _must_ not!

The power shattered, the connection faded, and suddenly she was alone once more.

Susan collapsed on the living room rug and Donna Noble called an ambulance.

* * *

Agent Geneva Murray looked at the x-rays and nodded at the ER Doctor.

"I'm sure it must be a mistake, Doctor, but we'll investigate of course," she assured him and ushered him from the room. The woman on the bed looked human enough; for all that she had two hearts, a bypass respiratory system, and a body temperature several degrees below what the doctor thought was healthy.

She approached the bed cautiously, none the less. A pair of brown eyes looked warily up at her.

"I'm Agent Murray, of Torchwood, could you please name your planet of origin," she asked, rattling off the usual question; with her eyes busy studying the ginger haired alien.

"I'm from Gallifrey, not that it matters anymore, it's gone now," she answered and Geneva hid a sour look. An impossible answer, as the Torchwood agent knew very well. Still, stranger things had happened, usually on Tuesdays.

"I'm afraid that as an illegal alien, you are going to have to come with me. We need to be certain that you aren't a danger," she explained to the woman in the bed. She sighed and nodded.

"It's your planet, Agent, I will abide by your rules," which had to be the most reasonable answer that Geneva had ever gotten from an alien before.

"Thank you," she answered and was quite sincere.

"Can you tell the people who brought me in some pleasant cover story, though? I would really hate to upset them, they deserve better," she requested and the thoughtfulness of that surprised Geneva.

"Of course," she agreed and began the paperwork to transfer the alien to Torchwood. She very much wanted the Doctor's opinion on this one, assuming she could make him focus on her questions for more than a minute or two, which was always the problem, wasn't it.


End file.
